Strongly Interacting Fermi Gases:
Non-Equilibrium Dynamics and Dimensional
Crossover
by
Ariel T. Sommer
Submitted to the Department of Physics
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
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@ Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2013. All rights reserved.
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Department of Physics
January 30, 2013
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VIartin W. Zwierlein
Silverman Fan ily Career Development Associate Professor of Physics
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Thesis Supervisor
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John Belcher
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Strongly Interacting Fermi Gases: Non-Equilibrium
Dynamics and Dimensional Crossover
by
Ariel T. Sommer
Submitted to the Department of Physics
on January 30, 2013, in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Abstract
Experiments using ultracold atomic gases address fundamental problems in manybody physics. This thesis describes experiments on strongly-interacting gases of
fermionic atoms, with a focus on non-equilibrium physics and dimensionality.
One of the fundamental dissipative processes in two-component gases is the transport of spin due to relative motion between the two spin components. We generate
spin transport in strongly-interacting Fermi gases using a spin dipole excitation and
measure the transport coefficients describing spin drag and spin diffusion. For resonant interactions, we observe strong suppression of spin transport, with the spin
transport coefficients reaching quantum-mechanical limits.
Dimensionality plays an important role in the formation of bound states between
pairs of particles. We tune the dimensionality of a Fermi gas from three to two dimensions (2D) using an optical lattice potential and observe the evolution of the pair
binding energy using radio-frequency spectroscopy. The binding energy increases as
the lattice depth increases, approaching the 2D limit. Gases with resonant interactions, which have no two-body bound state in three dimensions, show a large binding
energy determined by the confinement energy of the lattice wells.
The themes of non-equilibrium dynamics and dimensionality come together in the
study of soliton excitations in superfluid Fermi gases. We create a planar defect in
the superfluid order parameter of an elongated Fermi gas using detuned laser light.
This defect moves through the gas as a solitary wave, or soliton, without dispersing.
We measure the oscillation period of the soliton and find it to exceed the predictions
of mean-field theory by an order of magnitude.
Thesis Supervisor: Martin W. Zwierlein
Title: Silverman Family Career Development Associate Professor of Physics
3
To My Family,
Mark and Phyllis,
Everett, Adrian, and David
4
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the many people who made this work possible, and who contributed to the quality of my time at MIT.
First of all, my research advisor, Martin Zwierlein, deserves many thanks for his
guidance over the years. I am fortunate to have had an advisor who cares greatly
about the work we do, and who takes the time to share his knowledge with his students. Our discussions and brainstorming lead to many fruitful ideas, and I certainly
enjoyed thinking about physics with him. Martin has been a colleague as well as an
advisor, often joining his students in the lab and sharing with us the challenges and
the exciting moments of experimental physics.
I learned new lessons in physics from everyone with whom I worked. Together
with Martin, Andre Schirotzek taught me the how to set up and run atomic physics
experiments.
We set up many complicated experimental sequences, puzzled over
interesting results, and repaired countless water leaks. Under his mentorship I learned
the necessary experimental skills to keep the lab running after he graduated. Mark
Ku joined the group about two years after I did, and I have had the pleasure of
working with him on many projects. Mark set a high standard both in the quality of
his data analysis and in his exceptional thoughtfulness as a coworker.
In the following years, our lab gained many excellent members, with Lawrence
Cheuk, Wenjie Ji, and postdocs Waseem Bakr and Tarik Yesfsah and joining the
team. Lawrence arrived with a solid skill set in atomic physics experiments, and
was immediately able to help in the lab. Together we added an optical lattice to our
machine, and shared the moment of discovery when we saw the spectrum of molecules
in two dimensions. His abilities at solving both experimental and theoretical problems
continue to impress me. Waseem joined us as a postdoc during our experiments on
spectroscopy in a 1D lattice, and we immediately benefited from his knowledge of
optical lattices. From Waseem I often learned that what seems possible in principle
can also be possible in practice. We were fortunate to be joined by a second postdoc,
Tarik Yefsah.
I am grateful for Tarik's appreciation of doing things properly. He
5
introduced several improvements to the lab, and contributed greatly to our spin-orbit
coupling and soliton projects. The newest member of our lab, Wenjie Ji, continues
the trend of new students immediately impressing me with their abilities. I thank
her for the contributions she has already made, and hope that she will continue to
do well and enjoy her time here. I thank my labmates for their dedicated teamwork,
and wish them the best of luck.
Many other students from the Zwierlein group played important roles in my time
here. Cheng-Hsun Wu greeted me the first time I visited as a prospective graduate
student. I congratulate him on finishing his PhD at this time as well. I thank Cheng
and the current and former members of Fermi 1, Jee Woo Park, Ibon Santiago, Jennifer Schloss, Peyman Ahmadi, and Sebastian Will, for their willingness to help my
lab on many occasions, and for inspiring everyone with their hard work and accomplishments. I wish luck to the members of Fermi 2, Melih Okan, Matthew Nicols,
and Vinay Ramasesh, on their new experiment, and thank them for lending to BEC
1 many pieces of optics. I would also like to thank several undergraduate researchers
and visiting students, Christoph Clausen, Caroline Figgatt, Sara Campbell, Thomas
Gersdorf, Jacob Sharpe, Jordan Goldstein, Pangus Ho, and Kevin Fischer.
MIT is fortunate to have several research groups in atomic physics, and I got
to know many of the students and postdocs in the Ketterle, Vuletic, and Chuang
groups. The members of BEC 3 and BEC 5 made great neighbors. Many thanks to
Tout Wang, Timur Rvachov, Myoung-Sun Heo, Chenchen Luo, Yeryoung Lee, Caleb
Christensen, Gyu-Boong Jo, Jae-Hoon Choi, and Dylan Cotta for sharing the space
and often working with us to keep our labs running in harmony. The members of
BEC 5, Ivana Dimitrova, Paul Niklas Jepsen, Jesse Amato-Grill, and Michael Messer
brought a nice sense of community to the cold atoms labs, and are building a beautiful
new experiment with which I wish them luck. Additional thanks go to the students
and postdocs of the Ketterle group's BEC 2 and BEC 4 labs, especially Edward Su,
Hiro Miyake, Aviv Keshet, David Weld, Colin Kennedy, Wujie Huang, and Georgios
Siviloglou. I thank Edward and Hiro for their friendship throughout my time here.
Aviv I also thank for creating the word generator software and for helping us to use
6
it correctly, for helping me integrate my camera software with it, and for sharing his
sense of humor. The members of the Vuletic and Chuang groups also shared their
knowledge and resources with us, and I particularly thank Marko Cetina, Ian Leroux,
Thibault Peyronel, Kristi Beck, Shannon Wang, Peter Herskind, Arolyn Conwill,
Amira Eltony, and Molu Shi.
Many researchers from outside MIT played a role in my thesis work. Most notably,
Giacomo Roati visited us from Florence and worked with us in the lab for several
months, contributing significantly to the spin transport experiments. Later, Zoran
Hadzibabic visited from Cambridge, UK, and contributed to the study of spin-orbit
coupling. Wilhelm Zwerger visited MIT several times, and I thank him for giving
seminars on cold-atom physics, and for many discussions. I also thank the theoretical
physicists who exchanging ideas with us and worked on questions related to our
experiments, including Felix Werner, Kris Van Houcke, Georg Bruun, Christopher
Pethick, Olga Goulko, Tilman Enss, Hyungwon Kim, David Huse, and Giuliano Orso.
I would also like to thank my academic advisors Joseph Formaggio and Vladan
Vuletic, and MIT staff including Albert McGurl, Joanna Keseberg, and Maxine
Samuels.
Many friends at MIT outside of the physics world added to my time here. Special thanks to Jessica Noss, the members of Graduate Hillel and Techiya, Matthew
Schram, and Jason Boggess. Finally, I would like to thank my parents Mark and
Phyllis and my brothers Everett, Adrian, and David, for their support and encouragement.
7
8
Contents
1
2
Introduction
17
1.1
Quantum Simulation with Ultracold Gases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
17
1.2
History of Ultracold Fermi Gas Experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
18
1.3
Overview of This Thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
20
Ultracold Fermi Gases
25
2.1
Quantum Statistics and Quantum Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
25
2.1.1
Quantum Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
25
2.1.2
Second Quantization
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
26
Interactions and Feshbach Resonance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
27
2.2.1
General Description of Short-Range Interactions . . . . . . . .
27
2.2.2
Low Energies: s-Wave Scattering
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
29
2.2.3
Feshbach Resonances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
31
2.2.4
Hamiltonian of an Interacting Fermi Gas . . . . . . . . . . . .
33
2.2
2.3
2.4
2.5
The Density of a Gas at Equilibrium
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
34
2.3.1
The Density of Ideal Gases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
35
2.3.2
Interacting Fermi Gases
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
37
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
39
Dynam ics
2.4.1
Kohn's Theorem
2.4.2
Boltzmann Transport Theory
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
39
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
40
Spin Transport Coefficients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
42
2.5.1
Spin Drag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
43
2.5.2
Spin Conductivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
44
9
2.5.3
Spin Diffusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
46
2.5.4
Qualitative Behavior of the Spin Transport Coefficients .
48
2.5.5
Classical Calculation of Spin Transport Coefficients
. . .
49
2.5.6
Kubo Formula for Spin Conduction . . . . . . . . . . . .
52
55
3- Experimental Techniques for Studying Quantum Gases
3.1
The BEC1 Apparatus ....................
. . . .
55
3.2
Imaging Atomic Clouds .......................
. . . .
58
3.3
4
Absorption Imaging .....................
. . . .
58
3.2.2
Phase-Contrast Imaging ..............
. . . .
60
3.2.3
Obtaining the 3D Density . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . .
61
Measurement of the Trapping Potential . . . . . . . . . .
. . . .
62
65
Spin Transport in Strongly Interacting Fermi Gases
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
66
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
70
. . . . . . . . . .
72
4.1
Experimental Realization of Spin Transport
4.2
Fermi Gas Collisions
4.3
Measuring Spin Transport in a Trapped Fermi Gas
4.4
5
3.2.1
4.3.1
Definition of Spin Transport Coefficients for Trapped Gases
73
4.3.2
Spin Transport Measurements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
74
Spin Transport in Polarized Fermi Gases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
79
4.4.1
Highly-Polarized Fermi Gases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
79
4.4.2
Spin-Imbalanced Superfluids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
84
87
Evolution of Pairing From Three to Two Dimensions
5.1
5.2
Dimensional Crossover in a 1D Lattice
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . .
88
5.1.1
Single-Particle Physics in a 1D Lattice
. . . . . .
. . . . .
88
5.1.2
Bound States and Scattering in Two Dimensions .
. . . . .
90
5.1.3
Two-Body Physics in a ID Lattice
. . . . . . . .
. . . . .
91
5.1.4
Mean-Field Theory in Two Dimensions . . . . . .
. . . . .
91
Measurement of Binding Energies in a 1D Lattice . . . .
. . . . .
93
Experimental Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . .
93
5.2.1
10
5.3
6
7
5.2.2
RF Spectra in a 1D Lattice
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
96
5.2.3
Observed Binding Energies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
97
Conclusions on Fermion Pairing in the 3D-to-2D Crossover . . . . . .
102
Solitons in Superfluid Fermi Gases
103
6.1
103
Solitons in Superfluids
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6.1.1
Soliton Solution of the Gross-Pitaevskii Equation
. . . . . . .
103
6.1.2
Solitons in fermionic superfluids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
106
6.2
Creating Solitons by Phase Imprinting
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
106
6.3
Detection of Solitons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
110
6.4
Measurement of the Soliton Oscillation Period . . . . . . . . . . . . .
110
Conclusion
115
A Universal Spin Transport in a Strongly Interacting Fermi Gas
117
B Spin Transport in Polaronic and Superfluid Fermi Gases
129
C Revealing the Superfluid Lambda Transition in the Universal Thermodynamics of a Unitary Fermi Gas
145
D Evolution of Fermion Pairing from Three to Two Dimensions
151
E Spin-Injection Spectroscopy of a Spin-Orbit Coupled Fermi Gas
157
11
12
List of Figures
2-1
Feshbach resonances and hyperfine structure of Li
. . . . . . . . . .
32
3-1
Schematic of the vacuum system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
56
3-2
Hyperfine structure of
Na and 'Li . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
57
3-3
Measuring the trapping potential using the atoms . . . . . . . . . . .
63
4-1
Spin separation by magnetic field gradients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
67
4-2
Experimental sequence for spin transport experiments . . . . . . . . .
68
4-3
Collision of two spin-polarized clouds of fermions on resonance . . . .
69
4-4
Collisions with varying interaction strength . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
70
4-5
Frequency and damping times of spin excitations
71
4-6
Spin transport coefficients as a function of interaction strength.
. . .
75
4-7
Spin transport coefficients vs. temperature at unitary . . . . . . . . .
77
4-8
Spin transport in highly-polarized Fermi gases . . . . . . . . . . . . .
81
4-9
Spin transport in a superfliud Fermi gas
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
85
5-1
Lattice depth calibration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
95
5-2
RF spectrum of strongy-interacting fermions in a 1D lattice
. . . . .
97
5-3
Evolution of fermion pairing from 3D to 2D
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
98
5-4
Lineshape for bound-to-free spectra in 2D
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
99
5-5
Binding energy as a function of lattice depth . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
100
5-6
Binding energy in 2D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
6-1
Soliton solution to the Gross-Pitaevskii equation . . . . . . . . . . . .
104
6-2
Optical setup for phase imprinting
107
23
13
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6-3
Detection of solitons in a superfluid Fermi gas . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6-4
Periodic oscillation of a dark soliton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .111
6-5
Measurement of dark soliton oscillation period . . . . . . . . . . . . .111
6-6
Dark soliton oscillation period as a function of interaction strength
14
.
109
112
List of Tables
15
16
Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1
Quantum Simulation with Ultracold Gases
Ultracold atomic gases provide pristine realizations of many-body systems.
Re-
searchers studying ultracold atom systems usually know precisely the microscopic
model of the atomic gas, but know only approximate solutions to that model. Experiments on the system provide information about the exact solution. Comparing the
results of experiments to different approximate solutions allows researchers to identify
successful methods of approximation.
Conservation laws, symmetries, and dimensional analysis constrain the possible
solutions to many-body problems. These constraints allow us to write the solutions to
problems in terms of quantities that we can define, but the numerical values of which
we do not know. For example, from Galilean symmetry we know that the friction
between two clouds of distinguishable atoms varies, to leading order, proportionally
with the relative velocity of the clouds. From the violation of time-reversal symmetry
inherent in this relation, we know that this force increases the entropy of the system.
Finally, dimensional analysis allows us to write the proportionality coefficient in terms
of a dimensionless function of one or more dimensionless quantities composed of observable parameters. We can then measure this function experimentally and compare
it to the predictions of calculations based on different approximations. This approach
applies in any cold atom experiment-we know the ingredients of the problem, and we
17
assemble them to define measurable quantities.
Experiments using fermionic atoms address fundamental problems that arise in
the study of superconductors, magnets, liquid helium-3, nuclei, neutron stars, and
the quark-gluon plasma of the early universe. The theoretical methods tested against
ultracold atom experiments often apply to some of these systems as well, allowing a
transfer of knowledge.
1.2
History of Ultracold Fermi Gas Experiments
The development of laser cooling and magnetic trapping of neutral atoms in the
1980s and 1990s launched a new direction of research in atomic and condensed matter physics-the study of ultracold atomic gases. Bose-Einstein condensation of
at JILA [4],
23
87Rb
Na at MIT [34], and 'Li at Rice [14 in 1995 made available quan-
tum degenerate gases of bosons. Early studies included establishing the coherence
of the macroscopic wavefunction of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) through interference of two BECs [5] and the observation of vortices [101, 99, 122]. Studies also
measured collective excitations [102] including out-of-phase motion of a BEC and
thermal cloud [148].
Studies of ultracold fermionic gases began a few years later, with the observation of
a degenerate Fermi gas of 4 0K in 1999 at JILA [37]. In the next four years, experiments
on degenerate Fermi gases began in six more groups, with M. Ingusico's group in
Florence also using 40 K [128] and R. Hulet's group at Rice [156], C. Salomon's group
at the ENS [134], J. Thomas's group at Duke [62], W. Ketterle's group at MIT [67],
and R. Grimm's group at Innsbruck [74] using 6 Li.
Observation of superfluidity
served as the primary goal. Feshbach resonances [41, 108, 126, 32] provided a tool
for enhancing interactions to raise the superfluid transition temperature Tc, as well
as to tune the character of interactions. Observations of BEC in dimers of fermionic
atoms [174, 63, 13] and in Fermi gases across the Feshbach resonance after a rapid
ramp to the molecular limit in [125, 175] provided evidence that experiments had
created superfluid Fermi gases. Direct proof came in 2005 with the observation of
18
vortex lattices in rotating Fermi gases at MIT [170].
With superfluid Fermi gases available, groups around the world began studying
their thermodynamics [80, 151, 98] and collective oscillations [10, 79, 2, 164]. Tunable interactions allowed measurements to be made throughout the crossover from
Bose-Einstein condensation of molecules to Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer superfluidity
of long-range Cooper pairs (the BEC-BCS crossover), originally studied theoretically
by Popov [118], Keldysh and Kozlov [76] and Eagles [49] in the 1960s and generalized
by Leggett [92] and Nozi6res and Schmitt-Rink [107] in the early 1980s. The center of this crossover, where interactions are resonant and reach the unitary limit of
quantum mechanics, received particular attention. At unitarity, the energy scale associated with interactions drops out and the Fermi energy and temperature become
the only energy scales.
Because of strong interactions, the point at unitarity also
represents the greatest challenge theoretically.
At MIT and at Rice University, experiments on ultracold Fermi gases began to
focus on spin-imbalanced superfluids. The first goals addressed the long-standing
question of the stability of superfluidity in a system where the spin states have unequal Fermi energies [29, 57, 90]. Studies of density profiles of spin-imbalanced clouds
showed phase separation between an unpolarized superfluid core and a polarized normal phase [141, 113]. Experiments at MIT demonstrated superfluidity with imbalanced spin populations through the observation of vortices in spin-imbalanced clouds,
and measured the critical population imbalance for superfluidity across the BEC-BCS
crossover [172, 173]. The critical number imbalance measured at MIT [172, 173] and
at Rice [113, 112] differed significantly. Explanations pointed out that the high aspect
ratio of the atomic gases at Rice could lead to additional effects beyond the description of an equilibrium gas in the local density approximation [35, 84] although a clear
resolution would come later. Further studies at MIT mapped out the phase diagram
of the unitary Fermi gas with spin imbalance [143, 142].
Experiments on superfluidity in spin-imbalanced gases at MIT took place in the
BEC1 lab under W. Ketterle.
Work in BEC1 then began to use radio-frequency
(RF) spectroscopy to probe the microscopic physics of fermionic superfluids [135].
19
Tomographic reconstruction of 3D densities [140] and the realization of superfluidity in
a new combination of hyperfine states to reduce final state effects [137] established RF
spectroscopy as a quantitative tool for studying strongly-interacting Fermi gases. By
using the quasiparticles in a Fermi gas with small spin imbalance to calibrate energy
shifts, the group applied the newly developed spectroscopy techniques to measure the
superfluid gap and other parameters of the excitation spectrum [131].
1.3
Overview of This Thesis
When I arrived at MIT in 2007, I spent most of my first year helping to build a
new experiment for creating mixtures of atomic species, which has since been used to
study Feshbach resonances between
6
Li
23
Na, and multiple isotopes of K [166, 111,
165]. I also began learning about the BEC1 apparatus during the RF spectroscopy
experiments [131]. In 2008, Martin Zwierlein's group took over operation of the BEC1
lab, and I began working there full time.
The first experiment in BEC1 under the Zwierlein group extended the RF spectroscopy measurements on spin-imbalanced gases [131] to focus on the regime of large
spin-imbalance. Beyond the critical imbalance for superfluidity, the system remains
normal down to zero temperature. The atoms of the minority spin state interact with
the majority atoms to form a fermionic polaron quasiparticle-a quantized excitation
of the spin polarization [120, 26]. We applied RF spectroscopy to measure the binding energy of the Fermi polaron and to identify the transition from a polaron to a
molecule with varying scattering length [132].
To measure the effective mass of the Fermi polaron, we began to test methods of
exciting out-of-phase oscillations of the two spin components in spin-imbalanced Fermi
gases. During this time, a group at the ENS reported measurements of the polaron
effective mass using an out-of-phase compressional excitation [105]. We decided to use
our newly developed tools to go in a different direction, and to study spin transport
in Fermi gases.
While observations of out-of-phase oscillations required eliminating damping by
20
working with imbalanced gases at effectively zero temperature, I felt that the damping itself would provide new insight into these systems. Rather than eliminate it, we
set out to measure it. Damping of relative motion between spin states occurs due
to spin drag, or the exchange of momentum between the two states. The spin drag
coefficient expresses the rate of this momentum transfer. We studied the spin transport properties of strongly-interacting Fermi gases with equal populations in the two
spin states over a range of temperatures and interaction strengths [145] (Chapter 4).
We found that spin drag and spin diffusion at unitarity followed expected scaling
laws at high temperatures, and we measured their evolution into the yet-unexplored
realm of low temperatures. At low temperatures we found that the spin diffusivity
reaches a lower limit set by h/m, where h is the reduced Planck constant and m is the
mass of the atoms. The spin transport quantities we measured confirmed an explanation put forward regarding the discrepancy between the critical number imbalance
measured at MIT and at Rice, that the system studied at Rice had not reached
equilibrium due to the long timescales required for spin transport in weakly-confined
clouds [110, 94]. Returning to the subject of polarons, we measured spin transport
in highly-imbalanced Fermi gases at unitarity over a wide range of temperatures, and
observed the transition from classical scaling, to saturation by quantum degeneracy,
to the onset of Pauli blocking at the lowest temperatures [146].
Simultaneously with the experiments on spin transport, we carried out measurements of the equation of state of the unitary Fermi gas. In a trapped atomic gas at
equilibrium, the temperature is uniform while the trapping potential varies across the
cloud. A measurement of the atomic density distribution then gives a measurement of
the density as a function of the local chemical potential (in the local density approximation) at fixed temperature. At unitarity, due to the elimination of the scattering
length as a parameter, the equation of state in dimensionless form becomes a function of one dimensionless variable, and each density profile measures the equation of
state over some interval in the dimensionless variable. We obtained high-quality measurements of atomic density distributions in a well-calibrated trapping potential and
from these obtained the equation of state of the unitary Fermi gas [85, 158]. From
21
the equation of state, we obtained several thermodynamic functions, and observed
a sharp increase in the specific heat at the superfluid transition, giving a transition
temperature of 0.167(13) TF, where TF is the Fermi temperature [85].
Following the studies of spin transport and thermodynamics, we decided to begin
investigating the properties of Fermi gases in two dimensions.
In two-dimensional
(2D) Bose gases, a Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless-type superfluid transition had been
seen in 2006 [68]. By 2011, groups were beginning to study fermions in 2D [100, 56, 45].
We carried out RF spectroscopy measurements on fermions in a one-dimensional (D)
optical lattice to study fermion pairing in the crossover from 3D to 2D (Chapter 5).
Confinement of atoms in one direction by a deep optical lattice restricts motion
to a 2D plane, where two-body bound states exist for arbitrarily weak attractive
interactions. In a weak lattice, the system remains 3D but anisotropic, and binding
requires a minimum interaction strength, or the presence of a Fermi sea. We observed
the enhancement of the binding energy with increasing lattice depth toward the 2D
limit, and compared our measurements with mean-field theory predictions in 2D. In
addition to providing the binding energy, the lineshape of the RF spectra showed the
anomalous nature of interactions in 2D.
Recent experiments on spin-orbit coupling in bosonic gases [95] got us thinking
about spin-orbit coupling in Fermi gases. We set up Raman laser beams to generate spin-orbit coupling of two hyperfine states, similar to the method used in Bose
gases. Spin-orbit coupling results in a modified energy-momentum dispersion, containing two bands with spin texture. Using momentum-resolved radio-frequency (RF)
spectroscopy, we measured the energy-momentum dispersion and the spin composition of these two bands by injecting atoms into the spin-orbit coupled states [25].
Adding an additional coupling between the spin-orbit coupled states using an RF
drive, we also created an off-diagonal, or spin-orbit coupled, optical lattice. Intricate
momentum-resolved RF spectra of atoms injected into the spin-orbit coupled optical
lattice allowed us to determine the energy bands and the spin composition of the
eigenstates. Spin-orbit coupling is an important ingredient in many topological materials [121]. Future work in this direction offers the prospect of creating topological
22
states in atomic gases.
Finally, combining interests in dynamics and two dimensions, my colleagues and
I studied dark soliton excitations in superfluid Fermi gases (Chapter 6).
Soliton
excitations propagate without dispersing, and result from non-linearities in fluids.
In a dark soliton, the density of the fluid decreases near the excitation, while in
a bright soliton the density increases.
In a superfluid, dark solitons occur when
the phase of the superfluid order parameter jumps by a significant amount over a
short distance. Dark solitons in atomic superfluids have previously been observed in
Bose gases [19, 38, 11]. Theoretical studies predicted the existence of dark solitons
in Fermi superfluids, and calculated many of their properties, using a mean-field
approximation [6, 138]. We created dark solitons in superfluid Fermi gases using the
phase imprinting technique [19] and measured their oscillation period in a trapped
gas. Surprisingly, we found that the oscillation period greatly exceeds the predicted
value, reaching about a factor of 10 larger than the prediction at unitarity. Our group
is currently investigating the explanation of this result, and we suspect it relates to
the role of quantum fluctuations localized at the soliton [47, 91].
The experiments in this thesis have in common a similar spirit-to explore new
features of strongly-interacting Fermi gases. Although spin currents constitute one
of the fundamental dissipative processes in a Fermi gas, no previous experiments had
isolated them and demonstrated their properties in the strongly-interacting regime.
Nevertheless, in addition to their conceptual importance, spin transport properties
play a practical role in understanding experiments on spin-imbalanced Fermi gases.
The crossover from 3D to 2D and dark solitons also represent new features of stronglyinteracting Fermi gases. Yet, although we have gone out of our way to observe them,
they may turn up on their own in settings where we did not previously know to look
for them.
23
24
Chapter 2
Ultracold Fermi Gases
2.1
Quantum Statistics and Quantum Fields
2.1.1
Quantum Statistics
In quantum mechanics, particles belong to one of two classes: fermions and bosons.
Fermions obey the Pauli exclusion principle, stating that identical fermions cannot
occupy the same quantum state, while identical bosons can occupy the same quantum
state. These two classes of particles differ in their symmetry under an exchange of
identical particles. A system of two identical particles with wavefunction <D(ri, r 2 )
has
<b(ri, r 2 ) = o-4<(r
with a = -1
2 , r1
),
(2.1)
for fermions (Fermi statistics) and a = 1 for bosons (Bose statis-
tics). A collection consisting of an odd number of fermions obeys Fermi statistics,
while a collection consisting of an even number of fermions obeys Bose statistics.
The constituents of atoms-the electron, neutron, and proton-belong to the fermions.
Therefore, atoms with an odd number of constituents obey Fermi statistics, while
atoms with an even number of constituents obey Bose statistcs. For the experiments
reported in this thesis, we use the fermionic isotope 6 Li, which has nine constituent
particles.
25
2.1.2
Second Quantization
Second quantization provides a convenient notation for describing many-body systems [1].
In this notation, we write many-particle operators in terms of local field
operators. The field operator 0',,(r) annihilates a particle at position r in spin state
a, while the hermitian conjugate 01(r) creates a particle at r with spin state a.
In second quantization, the commutation rules of the field operator enforce quantum statistics:
0 (r)
where c- = -1
(r') - o-0p(r')0,(r) =
(2.2)
for fermions and 1 for bosons, as before. 1 In terms of the commutator
[,] and anti-commutator { , }, bosons obey [Ja(r),
follow {'
6o 6(r, r'),
=
6
a/
JP(r')1
6(r, r') and fermions
(r),0P(r')} = 6 J(r, r').
The state vector of a system with a many-body wavefunction '1(ri,r
2
,...) has
expressions in both ordinary and second quantization (consider the spinless case for
simplicity):
ID) =
)
(ri, r2, . ...
IP
.10) ,
.)O (ri)V (r2). ...
(ri, r2, ...
r, r2, . .. )=
(2.3)
where integration runs over the position variables.
For a single-particle operator,
F=
f(i)
(r)f(r)V'(r) dr,
=
(2.4)
while for a two-particle operator,
V
V(-, fj) = 2
=
ft(rJ)t(r 2 )V(r1, r 2 )'O(r 2 )V)(r1).
(2.5)
i<i
'The assumption of identical particles implies equation (2.1), while the single-valuedness of <)
requires o- = ±1. However, quasiparticles called anyons in some two-dimensional systems have
o- +1 in (2.2).
26
2.2
Interactions and Feshbach Resonance
In the experiments reported in this thesis, particles interact through short range, swave interactions. The interaction originates in the Van der Waals interaction, and
gains additional strength and tunability due to a Feshbach resonance. This section
reviews the import aspects of scattering, and the Feshbach resonance mechanism.
2.2.1
General Description of Short-Range Interactions
When we study systems of many particles interacting through a pair-wise potential
V(r), we will describe the properties of the systems as functions of some aspect of the
interactions. The potential function itself does not provide a suitable summary of the
interaction in such contexts because many qualitatively different potential functions
can ultimately give rise to the same behavior. Instead, we will describe the interaction
in terms of the effect it has on the particles. In the case of low-energy scattering that
applies to our experiments, we will see that the potential does only one thing to a
pair of interacting particles, and that we can describe the interaction with a single
number.
Before specializing to the case of low-energy scattering, we look at the general
problem of describing the elastic scattering of two particles. The interaction does not
affect the center of mass motion, so we write the Schr6dinger equation for the relative
part of the wavefunction,
-hV2
2m,I
+ V(r) '(r)
= EI(r),
(2.6)
where m, = m/2 is the reduced mass. In general, when two particles collide elastically,
their relative momentum k undergoes a rotation relative to its original direction. We
can find the probability of scattering into a given direction by looking at solutions to
(2.6) having the following form outside the range ro of the potential (in the case of
27
three spatial dimensions):
I(r)
= eik-r + f(0, ) e,
r
r > r0 ,
(2.7)
where the scattering amplitude f(0, 0) is some yet-undetermined function, and the
energy is Ek
=
1--.
We refer to solutions of this kind as scattering states.
The scattering amplitude f(0,
particles.
#)
fully characterizes the elastic scattering of two
In particular, the scattering amplitude determines the differential cross-
section. The relation between these quantities comes from the scattering state. The
first term in (2.7) describes an incident probability flux of Ji, = hk/mr, while the second term describes an outgoing (scattered) probability flux of Jout,r = hkIf12 /(mrr
2
)
in the radial direction. We equate the incident flux through a small area do- normal to
the incident wave to the outgoing flux through a small solid angle dQ in the outgoing
wave, Jin - d- =
2
Jout,rr dM.
The amount of area represented by a given solid angle
defines the differential scattering cross-section,
-If!2.
d
(2.8)
dQ
To find the scattering amplitude, we expand it in spherical harmonics (the partialwave expansion). We will assume a rotationally symmetric potential V(r) = V(r), in
which case
f
=
f(0) due to conservation of angular momentum. Expanding,
00
f(O) =
f 1P (cos9),
(2.9)
L=0
where the P are the Legendre polynomials and the
f, are
partial scattering ampli-
tudes, which depend on k. Likewise, we expand the scattering state (2.7) in angular
momentum eigenstates, and take the large kr limit,
'I'k(r) -
-+
>w=0 cIP (cos9) sin(kr -
+ 6),
(2.10)
where cl are expansion coefficients, and the J, are partial-wave phase shifts. The
28
term in the argument of the sine ensures that, for J,
=
0, the l-th term solves the
radial wave equation in the absence of interactions. The phase shifts therefore express
the effect of the interactions on the angular momentum eigenstates. One finds the
phase shifts by solving for the angular momentum eigenstates and looking at their
large kr limit. From the phase shifts, we can find the partial scattering amplitudes
using the relation
S
21+1
(2.11)
k(coto - i)'
which comes from equating the scattering state (2.7) to the sum over angular momentum states (2.10).
Scattering of Identical Particles
We have implicitly assumed distinguishable particles-for example, atoms of different
species or in different internal states. For identical particles, the scattering states must
have the correct behavior under particle exchange, I(r) = o-(-r), so we replace the
plane wave in (2.7) with eik.r + oe-ik.r and require
implies
f,
= 0 when (-1)'o- = -1.
f(0) = o-f(7r - 0). The latter
Consequently, identical bosons do not scatter with
odd 1, while identical fermions do not scatter with even 1.
In particular, identical
fermions do not undergo s-wave scattering. Since we work at low temperatures, this
means that identical fermions do not interact in our experiments.
2.2.2
Low Energies: s-Wave Scattering
At low energies, we usually need to consider only the 1 = 0, or s-wave, contribution to
the scattering amplitude. To see this, we first observe that the phase shifts typically
become small as k -+ 0. Heuristically, displacing the radial wavefunction by some
amount Ar corresponds to a shift of phase by kAr, which goes to zero as k -+ 0. An
exception occurs when Ar = 7r/(2k), which gives a phase shift of 7r/2 for all k, and
corresponds to a scattering resonance. In the absence of a resonance, J, ~ k 2 1+1 for
small k in a finite-range potential [114, 87], and
f,
~ k 21 . Therefore, only the 1 = 0
scattering amplitude remains finite in the limit of low energy.
29
An important parametrization of the scattering amplitude follows from the asymptotic scaling of the s-wave phase shift as 60 ~ k. We introduce the s-wave scattering
3o(k)/k. Then k cot 6 o -+ -1/ao.
length ao = -limk,
Using this in the formula
(2.11) for the partial scattering amplitude, we get
1
.,
1
-1/ao - ik'
fo =
and
d-
-
dQ
(2.12)
a2
=
~0
1 +k2
(2.13)
2
Note that at an s-wave scattering resonance, where 60 = 7r/2, we have k cot6o = 0,
which corresponds to the limit 1/ao = 0; the formulas (2.12) and (2.13) therefore
remain applicable at an s-wave resonance. Equation (2.12) shows that a single quantity, the s-wave scattering length, summarizes the effect of short-range interactions at
low energy. A related quantity is the overall scattering length a
= -
lim
k--+O
f.
It equals
the s-wave scattering length, unless one of the higher angular momentum phase shifts
equals 7r/2, in which case the scattering length diverges. In later sections we will
assume none of the higher angular momenta are resonant, and simply refer to the
scattering length a due to s-wave interactions.
Looking explicitly at the low-energy s-wave eigenstates provides an intuitive understand of the meaning of the s-wave scattering length, as well as a justification for
the asymptotic 60
-
k scaling. Consider the function u(r) = r Rko(r), where Rko(r)
solves the radial wave equation with 1 = 0. The function u(r) then satisfies a 1D
Schr6dinger equation,
-U" + 2rrV u = k 2 u,
(2.14)
with boundary condition u(0)=0. Inside the potential, where r < ro, u(r)
ui(r),
where ui(r) is the k = 0 solution inside the potential. Matching the solutions gives
u'(ro)/u(ro) = u'(ro)/ui(ro) = -1/a,
k.
where a is some constant, independent of
Since V(r > ro) = 0, u(r > ro) = sin(kr + 6o)
for some phase 60, which we
immediately identify as the s-wave phase shift. The matching condition then gives
30
-1/a = kcotJo -+ k/6 0 , assuming kro
< O < 1. Therefore, 60 -+ -- ak, and a equals
the s-wave scattering length ao. From u(r > ro) = sin(k(r - ao)), we see that ao is
the projected zero-crossing of the r > ro part of the wavefunction.
We can perform calculations with any potential that gives the right scattering
length. Moreover, we can altogether abandon the use of a potential function, and
replace it with a boundary condition on the wavefunction. As we see from the previous paragraph, the function u(r) for r > ro follows the radial wave equation with
V
=
0 and boundary condition u'(ro)/u(ro) = -1/ao.
For kro < 1, we can, to a good
approximation, move this boundary condition to r = 0. In other words, we can replace the potential in the Scr6dinger equation (2.6) with the Bethe-Peierl's boundary
condition,
lim
r-+O
=
r
-
ao
.
(2.15)
With the Bethe-Peierl's boundary condition, the Schr6dinger equation for ao > 0
has a single negative-energy solution, with E = -h 2 /(ma2).
This is the universal
low-energy bound-state, with wavefunction IF = e-'/o/r.
2.2.3
Feshbach Resonances
Feshbach resonances [27] allow us to tune the scattering length. In
6
Li, each pair
of the lowest three hyperfine sublevels of the electronic ground state has a broad swave Feshbach resonance [9, 169] (Fig 2-1.a). We use these resonances to control the
interaction strength in our experiments.
Feshbach resonances arise due to coupling between scattering channels. Each pair
of internal states of two colliding atoms defines a scattering channel. Interactions with
an applied magnetic field through the electron and nuclear magnetic moments cause
each channel to have a different energy for large interatomic separation. In an open
channel the energy associated with coupling to the magnetic field is less than the total
energy, and the mechanical energy is positive. In a closed channel, the mechanical
energy is negative. Initial and final states of a collision therefore must reside in open
channels. However, if the interaction couples the incident open channel to a closed
31
U
8
b
0.5-
15001000-
o
4 .0.0
0500-
n
0-
600
800
1000
0-500-
'UU
-4
-1000-
I
-8
0
500
1000
1500
--
2000
-1500-4,
0
Magnetic Field (G)
,
200
400
600
800 1000
Magnetic Field (G)
Figure 2-1: Feshbach resonances and hyperfine structure of 'Li. a, Scattering length
of 6 Li as a function of magnetic field, normalized by the Bohr radius. Inset: inverse
scattering length versus magnetic field. The zero crossings show the resonance positions (data from Ref. [169]). b, Sublevels of the 6 Li electronic ground state as a
function of magnetic field.
channel, atoms can virtually populate the closed channel during the collision. When
a bound state in the closed channel is at or near the same energy as the colliding
atoms, scattering is resonant.
For alkali atoms, the interatomic potential depends on the total electronic spin S
of the two colliding atoms. For triplet (S=1) scattering, the potential is VT(r), while
for singlet (S=0) scattering the potential is Vs(r). The total potential is then
V(r) = VT(r)PT + Vs(r)Ps,
(2.16)
where PT projects onto the triplet sub-space, and Ps projects onto the singlet subspace. In the high-field regime, the hyperfine states of alkali atoms are almost eigenstates of the electron spin projection m, along the magnetic field axis, with a small
admixture of the opposite spin projection due to the hyperfine coupling between the
nuclear and electron spins. The scattering states are then predominantly triplet, but
with a small singlet component. This singlet term allows the interaction (2.16) to
couple the incident channel to other channels, since the eigenstates of the hyperfine
interaction are different from the eigenstates of the interatomic interaction.
Pairs of the lowest three hyperfine states in 6 Li support Feshbach resonances due to
32
the presence of the three upper hyperfine states [721. Figure 2-1.b shows the hyperfine
levels of 6 Li in a magnetic field. The lower three hyperfine states are predominantly
m, = -1,
while the upper states are predominantly m, = +1
).
Singlet states
therefore require an equal contribution from both the upper and lower manifold,
causing the energy of the singlet states to lie above the energy of the lowest triplet
states. Consequently, bound states in the singlet potential can couple resonantly to
scattering states in the triplet potential.
The energy detuning between a scattering state in the triplet potential and a
bound state in the singlet potential depends on the magnetic field due to the different
magnetic moments in the singlet and triplet configurations. This allows us to tune
across the scattering resonance by adjusting the magnetic field. The scattering lengths
near the resonance are well-modeled by the expression [9]
a = ab
1+
B -Bo)
[1+
a(B - Bo)],
where BO determines the resonance position, A is the width,
ab
(2.17)
is a background scat-
tering length, and a is a correction parameter. The Feshbach resonance parameters
for each of the state combinations in 6 Li are measured in Refs. [9, 169]. For most of
the experiments in this thesis we use the earlier values [9], Bo = 834 G (1-2), 811 G
(2-3) and 690 G (1-3). However, for the soliton measurements we use the more recent
values [169], Bo = 832 G (1-2), 810 G (2-3) and 690 G (1-3).
2.2.4
Hamiltonian of an Interacting Fermi Gas
We will be interested in trapped gases of fermionic atoms at low temperatures, with
short-range s-wave interactions. The Hamiltonian for a system of N fermions with
positions ri and spin quantum numbers ai is
N-2
H
[
=
i=1
+ U(ri)] + E V(rii)(1 -
-i<j
33
5a),
(2.18)
where U(r) is a single-body external potential, V(r) is the pairwise interaction potential, and rij =
Iri - rj . In second-quantized notation,
(2.19)
H = Ho + H1,
2.3
H0 =
3 Jjot(r)
H1 = '
J
[_ -
V2
+ U(r) 4',(r) dr
1 )?1(r 2 )V(r 12 )A(r
i(r
2 )Pt(rl)dridr 2
(2.20)
(2.21)
The Density of a Gas at Equilibrium
Consider a gas in a box, with no external forces acting in the interior of the box.
One can measure the density of this gas directly, or predict it from any pair of
thermodynamic quantities. For example, the temperature T and chemical potential
p give the density n through a function n(p, T)
n = n(p, T).
(2.22)
One can use the equation of state n(p, T) of the homogeneous gas to predict the
density distribution in a potential that varies slowly in space. For sufficiently small
potential gradients, the system looks locally homogeneous, so the density follows
n(r) = n(p - U(r), T),
(2.23)
where U(r) is the trapping potential at the point r. We refer to equation (2.23) as
the local density approximation.
In experiments on trapped atomic gases, one usually measures the function n(r).
Fitting to the function n(p, T) then allows one to determine the temperature and
chemical potential of the gas. Conversely, if one knows p and T, one can use the
measured density distribution n(r) to infer the equation of state n(p, T).
34
2.3.1
The Density of Ideal Gases
In the case of non-interacting gases, n(p, T) follows from basic statistical mechanics.
Consider a gas of identical particles of mass m. In the grand canonical ensemble, the
probability of having Ni particles in a state i follows P(Nj) = e-(Ei-p)Ni/Zi, with E
the energy of the state, 3 = (kBT)- 1 , kB the Boltzmann constant, and Zj(p, T) the
partition function. The partition function follows
Zi(p, T) = E
e-(Ei-P)Ni _ (1_-_
(EiIA))_,
(2.24)
Ni
where the sum runs from 0 to 1 for fermions and 0 to oc for bosons. The expected
occupation (Ni) = EN, NjP (Ni) equals 3- 1 olnZj, giving
1
(Ni) =
where o, = -1
-
(2.25)
,
for fermions and 1 for bosons.
The density follows by summing the number of particles in all states and dividing
by the volume of the system. For a gas in a box in d dimensions, the energies are
Ek = h 2 k 2 /(2m), where k has components ka, = 27rne/L, with L the length of the
box along each axis, and na any integer. Now summing over all k gives the density,
L-d Ek(Nk). Since we usually study systems that occupy a large number of states, we
can approximate the sum with an integral. However, the integral does not correctly
include the population in the k
n(p, T)
=
-
=
0 state, so we add it by hand,
d
(21r)d
efl(Ek-4) -
01
+ (No)/Ld
Lid (oe' ) + (No)/L,
(2.26)
(2.27)
where Li, is the polylogarithm function and A = h/v/27rmkBT is the thermal deBroglie wavelength. The k = 0 term only makes a significant contribution in the case
of a Bose gas below the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) temperature, discussed
in a later section. The formula for n(p, T) in terms of the polylogarithm allows one
35
to predict the density of an ideal gas. Additionally, it allows one to determine the
temperature of non-interacting and weakly interacting gases from a measurement of
the density.
Ideal Gases at High Temperature
We define the high-temperature, or classical, limit by the condition nAd <
1. From
the fact that Li 8 (z) -+ z as jzj -+ 0, it follows that the classical limit corresponds to
6p --+ -oo.
In this limit,
n(p, T)
e,
p-+-oo.
(2.28)
Note that the quantum statistics of the particles no longer affect the equation of state.
However, by using p, we still assume identical particles. The classical limit turns out
to help even in strongly-interacting gases when the temperature is sufficiently high
and the density sufficiently low.
Ideal Fermi Gases at Zero Temperature
At zero temperature, the density of an ideal Fermi gas approaches a finite value
determined by the chemical potential. The average occupation (2.25) becomes 1 for
states with energy ci < p and 0 for states with energy Ec> p. The chemical potential
therefore equals the Fermi energy EF, defined as the maximum single-particle energy
in a ground-state system of non-interacting fermions. From the formula (2.27) for
the density, using an asymptotic limit of the polylog, or by counting the number of
occupied states, one finds the density of a zero-temperature ideal Fermi gas,
n(p, T =0) =
( 4 7r)d/2
k
ifd=1,
4r
if d= 2
kF
if d = 3,
frI
36
F(d + 1)
(229
(2.30)
where kF
=
V2mEF/h 2 , and p = EF.
Ideal Bose Gases at (and near) Zero Temperature
From the average occupation (2.25), we learn that p < 0 for an ideal Bose gas,
since each state has a non-negative, non-infinite, number of particles. However, as
3p
036
-
-+
0-, the ground state occupation becomes infinite.
On the other hand, as
oo, the population of the first excited state goes to zero. Therefore, in the limit
IPI < T < e1, where El is the energy of the first excited state, population accumulates
entirely in the ground state, and the system becomes fully Bose-Einstein condensed.
The density distribution of a non-interacting Bose-Einstein condensate does not follow
the local density approximation formula (2.23), but follows the wavefunction of the
single-particle ground state in the trapping potential.
2.3.2
Interacting Fermi Gases
The equation of state of a gas with s-wave interactions contains the s-wave scattering
length a as a parameter, n
=
n(p, T; a). In the high-temperature regime, one can
obtain the equation of state for the pressure P from the virial expansion,
00
P(p, T; a)#Ad = 2
b (p, T; a)e8'.
(2.31)
j=1
The virial coefficients bj, with b, = 1, are determined by solving the n-body problem
for n = 1 up to j. For the three-dimensional case, Ref. [96] gives the second and third
virial coefficients using solutions for two [21] and three [162] interacting fermions in
a harmonic trap (see also [71] for an earlier determination of b2 ). At lower temperatures, the equation of state is calculated in Ref. [69] using a self-consistent ladder
approximation and in Ref. [73] using an extension of the theory by Nozieres and
Schmitt-Rink [107]. The equation of state at zero temperature for arbitrary scattering length has been determined using a fixed-node diffusion Monte Carlo calculation
in Ref. [8].
37
Thermodynamics of the Unitary Fermi Gas
Many calculations and experiments address the special case of the unitary Fermi gas.
At unitarity, the scattering length diverges, and the equation of state of a homogeneous gas can be written as a universal function of one dimensionless parameter, for
example,
nA3 =
( M).
(2.32)
The virial coefficients for a homogeneous gas at unitarity become b2
b3 ~ -0.290 952 95, independent of T and yL [96]. Using n =
=
and
f
P/Oap and Eqn. (2.31)
gives,
n(p, T; a = +oo)A
3
= 2
jb eL8.
(2.33)
j=1
The virial expansion in the form (2.33) allows one to determine T and p by fitting to
the low-density region of a trapped unitary gas.
At zero temperature, the equation of state of the unitary Fermi gas becomes
pA = EF,
where
(2.34)
is the Bertsch parameter [58, 12, 55, 69, 7].
Our group has measured the equation of state of the unitary Fermi gas precisely [85, 158], and found it to agree well with bold-line diagrammatic Monte Carlo
calculations in the normal state [158]. We obtained the equation of state using two
different analysis methods. The original method [158] fits the low-density region of
the atomic gas to a known high-temperature (low Op) equation of state, and uses
the points at higher density to extend the equation of state to larger values of OP.
The virial expansion (2.33) provides a starting point. The second method [85] uses
the compressibility r. and pressure P, obtained directly from the density profiles, to
measure the equation of state in the form r,(n, P). The latter method avoids the
need for a fitting function. Our measurements give (
transition temperature of T, = 0.16 7 (13)TF [85].
38
=
0.376(4), and a superfluid
2.4
Dynamics
2.4.1
Kohn's Theorem
An atomic cloud moving in an arbitrary potential can, in general, stretch, compress,
or otherwise distort its shape and dissipate energy as the center of mass moves to
different regions of the potential. The center-of-mass motion of the cloud then couples
to the relative degrees of freedom. However, in some special cases, the center of mass
and relative degrees of freedom decouple.
In particular, this occurs in a constant
potential and in a harmonic potential. The case of a constant potential follows from
Galilean invariance. The harmonic case, shown below, is a generalization of Kohn's
theorem [81], the harmonic potential theorem [42].
Consider an atomic cloud in a trapping potential that is harmonic along the z
direction,
(2.35)
U(x, y, z) = nwz2 + Ut(x, y),
2
z
where Ut is the transverse trapping potential. Assume the center of mass only moves
in the z direction. The z coordinate of the center of mass satisfies
Z+
W Z 2 = 0,
while the z coordinates of individual atoms satisfy
,
(2.36)
2.6
where V(r) is the pairwise interaction potential as before.
Now we transform to
ii + w2zi =
Z
- 1
E.
d(r)z
.drij
Z
rj7
coordinates measured relative to the center of mass, zj = z - Z. The equations of
motion remain unchanged because Z solves the homogeneous version of (2.36), and
the right hand side depends only on the relative coordinates, z -z
= z--zj. Therefore
the dynamics in the center of mass frame are equivalent to the dynamics of a system at
rest. Additionally, one finds that the transformed Hamiltonian H'(r') = H(r') + Ecm
differs from the original form of the Hamiltonian by the constant energy Ecm of the
center of mass, and that the many-body wavefunction, transformed to the center-ofmass frame, satisfies the same Schrddinger equation as in the lab frame [42].
39
Experimentally, we often work with atomic clouds where the center of mass oscillates along the harmonically confined direction. These oscillations typically arise due
to magnetic field ramps during system preparation. The harmonic oscillator theorem
ensures that we can analyze the dynamics of atom clouds in the center of mass frame,
without risk that the center of mass motion influences these dynamics.
2.4.2
Boltzmann Transport Theory
In the classical and semi-classical descriptions of a many-body system, we specify the
number of particles near each point (r, p) in phase space. We divide phase space
into small cells of volume d3 rd'p = h 3 , and define the distribution function
f
(r, p, t)
as the number of particles in the cell containing the point (r, p) at time t. For N
particles, this definition of
f
gives the normalization
N-/dardap
f
Sh 3
(2.37)
(r,p).
The density and current density are
n(r) = J
J(r) = JVvf
3 f (r,p)
(2.38)
(r,p) = n(r)v(r),
(2.39)
where v(r) is the local average velocity. Additionally, the center of mass is
1 fd 3rdap
R= 1 J
r
rf (r, p).
(2.40)
In the absence of interactions, Liouville's theorem implies that f (r(t), p(t), t) is constant along a classical trajectory. The Boltzmann transport equation expresses the
rate of change of
f
along classical trajectories due to collisions,
Vrf + F - Vpf +
md/
40
(
,
coil
(2.41)
where F = -VU
is the external force. The left hand side is just df/dt along a path
in phase space, combined with Hamilton's equations. The right hand side expresses
the net rate at which particles enter the vicinity of (r, p) due to collisions.
This
rate depends on the probability of finding two particles near each other with the correct momenta, and therefore depends on the two-body distribution. We will assume
uncorrelated momenta, a condition which holds at high temperatures, but certainly
not in a BCS superfluid. Then the two-body distribution becomes a product of two
single-body distribution functions. Specializing to the case of fermions in two spin
states with only opposite-spin atoms interacting, we use the distribution functions f"
for spins a =t, 4. The rate of particles entering (r, p) due to collisions, minus the
rate leaving, is,
=cidd3P2 d Q
[F(r,pp
-
2
,pp
2
)
(r, P, P2, P
-
p]
(2.42)
where p' and p' are the momenta of two particles after an elastic collision with
initial momenta p and
P2
and a rotation of the relative momentum by Q = (0, q).
For uncorrelated momenta, the two-particle functions become
Fa(r,pi,p
2 ,p',p2) =
fa1f-a2(1
-
fa')(1-
f-2'),
(2.43)
where fai = fa (r, pi), etc. The (1-f) factors arise due to Pauli blocking for fermions,
which requires that the final states in a collision are initially unoccupied.
The Boltzmann transport equation allows us to calculate the evolution of singlebody properties using the method of averages [65]. For a quantity X (r, p), the average
value over the spin a particles is
(Xa(t)) =
1
d 33
X(r, p)f.(r, p, t).
For example, the center of mass of spin a is R, = (ra).
41
(2.44)
Averages evolve under the Boltzmann transport equation (2.41) according to
d (Xa)
dt
(
- VrXa) + (F - VpXa) +
m\dt/ci
dXc ol
(2.45a)
where
dXa
dt
1
N.
Coil
f drdp
da
dt4 Col
(
h3
(2.45b)
We will use Eqn. (2.45) to calculate the spin transport coefficients in the classical
limit in section 2.5.5. We can save some calculational effort by noting that the rate
of change (2.45b) due to collisions gives zero if collisions conserve (Xe). For example,
when X depends only on position, (2.45b) vanishes because the position of a particle
does not change significantly during a collision. Additionally, since the sum of the
momentum or energy over both spin states is conserved,
d,
__
d
C
Coll=0,24
and
dL
dP\
+
coll
=
0.
(2.47)
coll
On the other hand, since the relative momentum of colliding particles is not conserved,
dp/
dt
d
#0.
dtcol
coi
(2.48)
The non-conservation of relative momentum causes rapid damping of spin currents.
2.5
Spin Transport Coefficients
When a physical system is slightly perturbed from equilibrium, it usually evolves
according to dynamical rules that are linear. The proportionality constants relating
the resulting motion in the system to the disturbance that caused it are known as
transport coefficients. In the present chapter, we are interested in a perturbation of
the spin density, and the resulting spin current. The transport coefficients describ42
ing spin currents are the spin drag coefficient, the spin conductivity, and the spin
diffusivity [33, 54].
2.5.1
Spin Drag
In a gas of atoms in two spin states, relative motion of the two spin states defines a
spin current. Collisions between atoms of different spin damps the spin current by
randomizing the relative velocity of the colliding atoms. The exchange of momentum
between the two spin components constitutes a drag force. For small spin currents,
the drag force grows linearly with the current, and the proportionality constant gives
the drag coefficient.
We will define the spin drag coefficient for a collection of two types of particles, in
the sense of Ref. [33]. Suppose the particles of type i have total mass Mi and center of
mass velocity vi, where i = 1, 2. For small velocities, we assume that the force F 2 1 on
the type 2 particles due to collisions with the type 1 particles varies linearly with the
velocities, F 2 1 = -aV2
+ Ovj. To determine the relation between a and #, consider
a reference frame where the velocity of type 1 particles is zero at some instant in
time. In this frame, and at that moment in time, F 2 1 = -av 2 . Transforming to an
arbitrary frame that moves with velocity u relative to the original frame, the velocities
become v'
= V2
- u and v' = -u, while the force F2,
because it represents an acceleration. This gives F2,
and 3
=
=
=
F 2 1 must remain the same,
-a(v' + u) = -a(v' - v'),
a. Therefore, the drag force depends on the relative velocity of the two
components. 2 Since we obtained this result for an arbitrary reference frame, we may
drop the primes and write F 2 1 = -a(v 2 - vi). Additionally, due to Newton's third
law, F 12 = -F
21
= -a(vi - v 2 ).
The coefficient a determines the damping rate of the relative motion between the
two components. Assume no external forces act on the system. In that case,
2 -
-a
(= --
+
(v 2
2
-
v 1 ) = -SD(V2
-
V1 ),
(2.49)
This expression for the drag force is Galilean-invariant; having obtained it in one
reference frame,
it was guaranteed to hold in all reference frames.
43
which motivates the definition of the spin drag coefficient
rSD.
In terms of the spin
drag coefficient, the force law reads,
F2 1
MSD(V2
= -
M1
+ M2
-
V1)-
(2-50)
In a system of particles with equal masses m, we can apply (2.50) locally to find
the drag force per unit volume
dFt
d-=
d3r
where
fSD
-m
ntni
I WFSD(r)(vt - vi),
nt + n4
(2.51)
is the local value of the spin drag coefficient. Since our experiments involve
inhomogeneous systems, we will use FSD to refer to the global drag coefficient.
The definition of the spin drag coefficient allows the two types of particles to have
different masses. For the experiments in this thesis, the two spin states originally
have equal masses. However, in spin-imbalanced gases (Section 4.4.1), the spin up
and spin down quasiparticles can have different effective masses. A spin-dependent
lattice can also modify the effective masses of the two spin states. Moreover, one can
apply this definition to describe the drag force between two clouds of different atoms,
for example lithium and potassium.
2.5.2
Spin Conductivity
The spin conductivity expresses the linear response of the spin current to an applied
spin dependent force. It plays an analogous role for spin systems to the electrical
conductivity in charged systems. For current density Jc = nv
0
in spin a, the spin
current density and total current density are
Js = JT - Jj
(2.52)
J =Jf+J4
(2.53)
In a typical electrical conductor, the drag force on the charge carriers varies pro44
portionally to the electric current. By balancing this drag force with an electric field,
one establishes a steady-state current, and defines a conductivity. However, the spin
drag force (2.51) does not vary exactly in proportion to the spin current (2.52), but
instead varies with the relative velocity. We therefore decompose the spin current
into a dissipative part that causes drag, and a non-dissipative, or reactive, part,
(2.54)
Js =JD+JR
with
jD- 2 nt"t
JD =
where n
=
ni
jR
n
JR =
7J
+ n and n,
2
-(n Jf n
(Vt - v4 ) =
nt - n,.
ftJ.)
(2.55a)
(2.55b)
The spin drag force then becomes
dt
d 3r
~mfSDJD.
-
2
(2.56)
To define the spin conductivity, suppose a spin-dependent force is applied, so that
each atom with spin a feels a force F,.
Then let Fs = Ft - F.
In steady state,
the spin current generates a spin drag force that balances the applied spin-dependent
force,
0
=
mirt -
ig
1-
-
(2.57)
1
1
F - -mfSD(+ -)JD
2
nT
n
(2.58)
and therefore
JD =
u,F,
(2.59)
with the spin conductivity given by
U
2
ntn
= mFSDnT+
45
(2.60)
The total spin current in the pressence of a spin-dependent force is therefore
Js = o-,Fs + n J
n
2.5.3
(2.61)
Spin Diffusion
In a two-component system with no external potential, the equilibrium state has
uniform densities for the two components. A gradient in the density of either species
will result in a current as particles flow from regions of high density to low density.
When both species have density gradients in the same direction, the resulting pressure
gradient will drive a net current of particles, or mass current. However, when the
density gradients in the two species are not equal, the current densities of the two
species will differ, leading to a spin current.
To determine the spin current resulting from a non-equilibrium density distribution, we first find the spin response to a gradient in the chemical potential difference
pt - p,. We use the local chemical potentials pa = p,(nt, nj, T). At equilibrium, in a
spin-independent external potential U, the chemical potential difference is constant,
i.e. V(pT - p,) = 0. Therefore, any gradient in pt - p implies a non-equilibrium
system, and may lead to a spin current. Suppose a given gradient V(pt - tq) induces
some spin current J,() in the J = 0 frame. We can cancel this current by applying a
spin-dependent potential U, such that VUa, = -Vpa - VU, since that is the equilibrium condition for the chemical potentials. The spin-dependent potentials create a
spin force Fs = -V(UT
current JF)
cancel, J
- U) = V(p - pq), and according to (2.59), generate a spin
,F,. Since the system is now at equilibrium, the spin currents must
+JF) = 0. The spin current due to the chemical potential gradients is
±
therefore J,() = -o-V(pt - pI). From this we conclude that the dissipative part of
the spin current due to chemical potential gradients in a spin-independent potential
is
JSD= -o-V(p
-
pg).
(2.62)
Since a gradient in chemical potential implies a gradient in density, we can use
46
(2.62) to write the spin current response to a spin density gradient.
gradient in spin density does not always lead to a spin current.
However, a
For example, a
trapped system with an un-equal number of atoms in the two spin states has a locally
non-zero spin density gradient at equilibrium. We therefore restrict our attention to a
simple case. Consider a location where the densities of the two spin states are equal,
nT = n . Further, assume that the two spin states have opposite density gradients,
Vnt = -Vn.
The spin density gradient then varies proportionally to the gradient
of the chemical potential difference
V(nT - nm) = X5 V(/t - p,),
(2.63)
where X, is the spin susceptibility. 3 Using (2.63) in (2.62) gives the spin diffusion
equation for this case,
Js = -DsVns,
(2.65)
where
D-
.
(2.66)
Xs
Equation (2.66) is known as an Einstein relation, and is an example of the fluctuationdissipation theorem.
Coupling of Spin and Heat Transport
In deriving the spin current due to a gradient in the chemical potential different
(2.62), we implicitly assumed that the system had a uniform temperature-with a nonuniform temperature, we could not impose equilibrium simply by applying external
potentials. The assumption of uniform temperatures holds well in our experiments,
but interesting effects are predicted to occur when spin and heat flow simultaneously.
In particular, Kim and Huse [78] have pointed out that the coupling of spin and heat
3
In general, the spin susceptibility is defined by
XS =
( pte
n) ,(nTp
an
where the temperature and total chemical potential pt
47
+
pq are held constant.
(2.64)
currents should be observable in atomic Fermi gases with non-zero spin polarization.
In the presence of a temperature gradient, equation (2.62) becomes [78, 23]
J'
-3V(pj
=
-
P ) -
(2.67)
2SsVT,
where Ss is the spin Seebeck coefficient.4 According to (2.67), applying a temperature
gradient should result in an observable spin current for sufficiently large S,.
2.5.4
Qualitative Behavior of the Spin TYansport Coefficients
The universal behavior of the spin transport coefficients of a Fermi gas can be estimated on general grounds.
At unitarity, Eqn.
cross-section between atoms of opposite spin as o
(2.13) gives the total scattering
=
1.
In the degenerate regime,
where T ~ TF, the characteristic wavevector is the Fermi wavevector kF = (67r 2 n) 1 / 3
with n the density per spin state, and the scattering cross section is approximately
0, ~ 1/k}. The mean free path between collisions is thus 1 = 1/na
-
1/kF or about
one interparticle spacing, the smallest possible mean free path in a gas. The average
speed v of atoms is on the order of the Fermi velocity hkF/m. We can then estimate
the spin diffusivity with resonant interactions at T ~ TF,
D
vi
(hkF/m) (1/kF)
h
(2.68)
This value for Ds represents a universal quantum limit to spin diffusivity in Fermi
gases. Away from resonance, the scattering cross section decreases, increasing D8 .
For temperatures T much greater than the Fermi temperature TF, the scattering
cross section will be given by the square of the thermal de Broglie wavelength, and
thus decreases as a oc 1/T. The velocity, in turn, will increase as v oc
T, causing
D, to increase as
Ds oc T
2
,
T > TF
(2.69)
4Our definition
of o-, differs from that in [78] by a factor of 2 owning to our use of JD = 2j spi,
where j ,pi is the dissipative spin current in [78].
48
An analogous scaling argument applies to the viscosity[22, 51]. Finally, for T < TF,
the average velocity will remain on the order of the Fermi velocity, but the effective
scattering cross section will scale as
- oc T 2 due to Pauli blocking, causing D, to
increase like T- 2 as the temperature is lowered.
For a Fermi gas, we thus expect
the minimum D, to occur at degenerate temperatures, before Pauli blocking becomes
effective.
The spin drag coefficient FSD can be estimated using analogous arguments. FSD
scales like the collision rate nay. The maximum of
FSD
is expected to occur for
degenerate gases at unitarity. The estimates in the previous paragraph for a- and v
give
FSD ~
(2.70)
no-~ EF/h,
where EF = h 2 k /2m is the Fermi energy. Tuning away from unitarity, the scattering
cross section decreases, and hence FSD decreases.
For temperatures much larger
and much smaller than the Fermi temperature, FSD also decreases.
By analogous
arguments to those for Ds, the expected high-temperature scaling of FSD at unitarity
is
T >> TF
FSD o T-,
(2.71)
At low temperatures, o- oc T 2 due to Pauli blocking, resulting in FSD oc T
2.5.5
2
scaling.
Classical Calculation of Spin Transport Coefficients
We use the Boltzmann transport equation (section 2.4.2) to find the spin drag coefficient in the classical limit. Consider a uniform cloud of spin up and spin down atoms.
The relative velocity of the two clouds along an arbitrary axis z evolves according to
(2.45) as
d(VZT - v)
d
t
dv
dt
V4
/dt/
(2.72)
In light of (2.49), the spin drag coefficient is given by
i
Coll
dv
Coll
49
=
-FSD (vzt
-
vz 4 )
(2.73)
Evaluating the collision integrals therefore gives
['SD.
The collision integrals can be
written
dv 4
\ dt
d
\ dt
Cl
_ f d3rd3 pid3p 2 dQ 1pi - P21k [Ft(1'2'12) - Ft(121'2')]
dQ
m
h6
Col
N
using the property F 4 (121'2')
=
V2z = (v1
NT
N
+
-N,
)
FT( 2 12'1') (see Eqn. 2.43) and the symmetry of the
remaining part of the integrand under 1
V1
(2.74)
V22
X (V1z
++
2. Further simplification follows by writing
v2+)
+
+
Vz - V2z
NT
NT
2
Ng)
(2.75)
Ng)
and noting that the first term integrates to zero due to conservation of momentum
(Eqn. 2.46).
We linearize the collision integral (2.74) by expanding the distribution functions
about the equilibrium distributions,
fa = f, + Jfa,
where
(2.76)
f. = 1/ (efl(EIA) + 1), the Fermi-Dirac distribution. The deviation
6fa
will
typically have a factor of Dfo/Oe = -,6f,(1 - f.) so we write it as
(2.77)
6fa = f0(1 - f)V)a
for some function 4'a (p). Keeping only the leading terms in V),
the collision integral
(2.74) becomes
d(vzt - vz.)
d
_ nt + nJ
)Coll
2nfn
d 3pldsp 2 dQ do
dQ
h6
('1,/+ 02,
-
01
-
1
-
V2 1(Vlz
)2)f0f20(1
-
-
fl)(1
-
20).
(2.78)
On the second line we omit the spin indices; 1 always corresponds to spin up and 2
to spin down. Additionally, we used the assumption of a uniform system to perform
50
the spatial integral and replace the particle numbers by the densities n".
To determine *,, we assume the distribution functions differ from equilibrium by
a shift in velocity,
fa(v)
where
Vd,a =
=
f (v - Vda~)
(2.79)
fa, + fa(1 - fa')#mv -Vd,a
(2.80)
(va) is the average velocity of spin a. Therefore, according to (2.77),
Oa(V) = /mV -Va.
The factor in the linearized collision integral (2.78) involving the
a becomes
11 + 021 -'01
-
2 U - (U' - U),
=
(2.81)
where we have introduced the relative velocities
u = VI - V2
(2.82a)
U' = V'/ - v'2
(2.82b)
Ud = Vdt - Vdj
(2.82c)
and used conservation of momentum v 1 + v 2 = v'1 + v2 = 2V. The terms in the
collision integral proportional to Ud,,
and Ud,y vanish by symmetry. The spin drag
coefficient is then given by
F S=
= Om
/SD
nt+ n n
Antn
)
-h
6
d io-u~
1
d3 Vd 3 udQ
2uu,(u'
- UZ)
dQ
x
In the classical limit,
fO
=
e-a
«1
f1f2(1-fi,)(1-f,)
and we omit the 1 -
f
(2.83)
factors. In terms
of the relative velocity, the s-wave scattering cross section (2.13) is,
dodu
dQ
a2
2
1+
1 + ( U)a 2a2'-
51
(2.84)
Carrying out the integrals, the spin drag coefficient is
8
3
+ n 2 )o (T/Ta)
SD = -(n 1
kBT
,
irm
(2-85)
ue-u,
(2.86)
where the mean scattering cross section is
-(T/Ta) = 47ra2 Jd.
+T
2
T.
and Ta = h 2 /(kBma 2 ). The limiting values of the mean scattering cross section are
o-(T < Ta)
=
47ra 2
(2.87)
27rh 2
BT =
u-(T > T,) =
22,
(2.88)
where A is the thermal de-Broglie wavelength. For unitary interactions, Ta = 0 and
we have
hrSD
EF
with
BF
'(7r2(
+
32v2
EF
TT
93/2
0.90
F
k BT'
(2.89)
n 2 )) 2 /3.
The Einstein relation (2.66) together with the classical result for the spin susceptibility Xs =
2.5.6
#6f gives
the classical spin diffusion coefficient at unitarity,
3/2
973/2 h
T
3 2 V/2m
kTF)
1.h
m
T )3/2
(2.90)
TF
Kubo Formula for Spin Conduction
The Kubo formula provides a general framework for calculating linear response coefficients.
We write the Hamiltonian as H(t) = HO + Af(t), where Af(t) is the
perturbation due to a weak external field. The change in a quantity B, to leading
order in the perturbation, is
(JB(t)) =
j
XBA(t - t')f(t')dt',
52
(2.91)
with Fourier transform
(6B(w)) =
(2.92)
XBA(W)f(W),
where f(w) is the Fourier transform of f(t). The response function
XBA(t)
and its
Fourier transform are [86, 161]
XBA(t) =
i 0(t) ([A(-t), B]) 0
(2-93)
and
XBA(W) =
if
dt ekt ([A(-t), B])O,
(2.94)
where A(t) = eiHotAe-iHot is the interaction picture representation of A, and the
expectation value is taken over the equilibrium state. Using the relationship between
the Fourier transform of a function and its derivative,
XBA(W) = 1
W 0
XBA(W)
can be written [86],
dt ewt [A(-t), B],
)0
(2.95)
where A = i[Ho, A].
To obtain an expression for the spin conductivity, we consider a uniform spindependent force applied to a system of spin up and spin down atoms. The perturbation to the Hamiltonian is then
H' =
=
j d3r {44[-F,(t)z]*T + 'O[F,(t)z]Ofj
-
d3rz f, F,(t),
(2.96)
(2.97)
where f, is the spin density operator. The force has been chosen to lie along the z
direction, and the factor of ! sets FT - F = F,. The response function of the spin
current is the dynamic spin conductivity,
(Js,2(w)) = os(w)Fs(w).
(2.98)
Before using the Kubo formula (2.95) to find the spin conductivity, we note that the
53
continuity equation for the spin density implies
-
d3rz
=
d3rz V - J, =-
d3rJ,
(2.99)
Therefore the dynamic spin conductivity is
d ewt
-(
= jdt
-diwt
2w
d3r
([JSZ(0)7 JSZ(-t)])O
(2.100)
d3r
([JSZ(t), JSZ(0)1)0 7
(2.101)
where the second line uses the fact that the expectation value is taken over the
equilibrium state.
The Kubo formula (2.101) allows the spin conductivity to be
calculated from a microscopic model of the gas at equilibrium. For example, Ref. [50]
uses this formula to calculate the spin transport coefficients for the unitary Fermi gas
in Luttinger-Ward theory. 5
5
The definition of a-, in Ref. [50] differs from the definition used here by a factor of 2.
54
Chapter 3
Experimental Techniques for
Studying Quantum Gases
The BEC1 Apparatus
3.1
The experiments reported in this thesis were carried out using a dual-species machine
that produces quantum-degenerate gases of 23 Na and 'Li. This section provides basic
information about the experimental setup. Additional details can be found in several
publications [67, 66] and theses [149, 136, 150, 171, 75].
The experimental setup consists of a vacuum chamber and supporting optics and
electronics. Figure 3-1 shows a schematic of the vacuum system. An atomic beam
is generated from hot vapor given off by molten sodium and lithium within the oven
chamber. The atomic beam is slowed by laser light as it passes through a Zeeman
slower into the main chamber, which is held under ultra-high vacuum (UHV). Atoms
are collected in a magneto-optic trap (MOT) in the main chamber for a few seconds
and transferred to a Ioffe-Pritchard magnetic trap for evaporative cooling.
Transferring atoms from the MOT to the magnetic trap proceeds by switching off
the laser light and magnetic fields that create the MOT, and optically pumping
23
Na
and 6 Li atoms into stretched hyperfine states. We use the low-field seeking states,
F=
the
I,mF
23
= 3)
Na and
6
for 6 Li and
IF
=
2
,mF
=
2) for
23
Na. The hyperfine sublevels of
Li electronic ground states are shown in Fig. 3-2.
55
A weak guide
Oven chamber
Na
Main chamber
Zeeman
slower
Li
Figure 3-1: Schematic of the vacuum system used for these experiments.
field is applied during optical pumping to define the quantization axis. After optical
pumping, the magnetic trap is switched on, producing a magnetic field with a local
minimum at the position of the atomic cloud. In the vicinity of the atoms the magnetic
field has the form
B(r, z) =
Bz +
B'z2) i + B,r.
(3.1)
The bias field B, is set to 80 G at first to weaken the radial confinement, and subsequently lowered to about 4 G. The gas is cooled in the magnetic trap for about
20 s by forced evaporation of the sodium atoms using a microwave field to transfer
the most energetic atoms to the
IF = 1, mF
=
1) state. Sodium atoms in the 11, 1)
state are high-field seeking, and leave the trap. Lithium is cooled sympathetically
by thermalization with sodium. Without lithium, this method produces a 2 3 Na BEC
of about 10' atoms. With lithium, full evaporation of the sodium atoms produces a
quantum-degenerate gas of a few times 107 6Li atoms.
The spin-polarized
6
Li cloud is essentially non-interacting, because fermions in
identical spin states do not scatter at low temperatures, as discussed in Section 2.2.1.
To allow interactions we must at least create a mixture of two or more hyperfine states.
By using combinations of the three lowest hyperfine states, and applying magnetic
fields in the 500 to 1000 G range, we access the Feshbach resonances described in
Section 2.2.3, allowing us to tune the scattering length.
The lowest three hyperfine states of 6 Li are high-field seeking, and cannot be
trapped using purely magnetic forces.
Additionally, working at high fields would
mean increasing Bz in Eqn. (3.1), which weakens the radial confinement. Therefore,
56
23
Na
mF
mF
2
3/2
1/2
-1/2
MS -,++
2
-3/2
-1/2
rri
mn
T
-1
F=2
F=3/2
t
228 MHz
1772 MHz
F=1/2
F=1
-2
-1ms
0
_____
0
400
800
0
1200
Magnetic Field (G)
_____
_
_
200
100
Magnetic Field (G)
11/2
300
Figure 3-2: Energy sublevels of the electronic ground states of 2 3Na and 6 Li versus
magnetic field. Low-field seeking states have a positive slope and are magnetically
trappable. At high fields, the electron and nuclear spin decouple and the energy
eigenstates approach ms eigenstates. The IF = 2, mF = 2) state of 23Na and the
state of 6 Li are used during evaporative cooling in the magnetic
IF = 1, mF =
trap. For experiments at high fields, we transfer 6 Li into one or more of the three
lowest hyperfine states.
after sympathetic cooling, an optical dipole trap (ODT) is ramped up and the radial
gradient B' is ramped to zero. The optical dipole trap is generated by an infrared
laser at 1064 nm, focused to a waist of w = 120 pm. The ODT provides confinement
along the radial direction, with a potential energy [64]
U(r) = aLilo e
(3.2)
2 /2
where Io is the peak intensity of the laser, and aLi = 1.27 x iO-'s
2 /kg
expresses
the polarizability of 6 Li by light with a wavelength of 1064nm. The magnetic field
curvature continues to provide confinement in the axial direction. The atoms are now
held in a hybrid trap formed by magnetic and optical forces.
After loading lithium atoms into the hybrid trap, we transfer them to the lowest
hyperfine state 11)
IIF =
1, mF =
1) and raise the magnetic field. The state transfer
is performed by applying microwave excitation and sweeping the magnetic field by a
few hundred mG to drive a Landau-Zener transition. State 11) is high-field seeking,
so we quickly reverse B. to generate a local maximum in the strength of the magnetic
57
field and keep the atoms trapped. The bias field is then ramped up to a target value
in the range of several hundred gauss. A spin mixture of any combination of the
three lowest hyperfine states 11), 12), and
13) is then created using radio-frequency
excitation. From here the machine is ready to perform a wide range of experiments
on interacting Fermi gases.
3.2
Imaging Atomic Clouds
We obtain information about the atomic gas by sending laser light through the gas
and recording a two-dimensional image of the transmitted light intensity on a CCD
camera. An imaging system composed of one or more lens pairs focuses the image of
the gas onto the plane of the CCD detector. The recorded image provides information
about the atomic density distribution. 1 We use two types of imaging: absorption and
phase-contrast. Absorption imaging uses light resonant with an electronic transition
in the atoms. Phase-contrast imaging uses light detuned by several linewidths.
3.2.1
Absorption Imaging
For absorption imaging, the intensity of light transmitted through a dilute atomic
cloud is
If = Ise-O",
(3.3)
where Ii is the incident intensity and oO is the resonant absorption cross-section. The
column density i is the integral of the density distribution n along the line of sight
of the camera,
ii
=
fnds.
(3.4)
'Although we use a focused imaging system, Ref. [129] shows that a slightly de-focused imaging
system can provide information about the spatial fluctuations of the gas density.
58
We measure the ratio If/I by taking three separate images, one with atoms, one
without atoms, and one dark field image without laser light, giving
If
IwA
Ii
IwOA
(35)
IDF
-
IDF
where IwA, IwOA, and IDF are signals recorded with atoms, without atoms, and
without imaging light, respectively. Resonant imaging light heats the atomic cloud,
so we can only take one set of images. Using a camera that can record multiple
exposures in rapid succession allows us to image multiple spin states before heating
significantly alters the density distribution.
We choose the duration and intensity of the imaging pulses to obtain a high signalto-noise ratio without disturbing the cloud or incurring non-linearities. Detecting as
many photons as possible minimizes the effects of photon shot noise and electronic
readout noise. On the other hand, using too high of a light intensity can saturate
the atomic transition. Saturation leads to a non-linear response that is complicated
to calibrate, although it can be done [167]. Saturation causes an intensity-dependent
reduction in the resonant absorption cross-section,
Co(I)
=
1 + I/ISAT
,O(0)
(3.6)
where ISAT is the saturation intensity. Through simulations, we find that we can
reduce the non-linearity to negligible levels by using I/ISAT < 0.1, with the precise
value depending on the error tolerance of the measurement. With limited intensity,
using longer pulses allows the capture of more photons, and reduced noise. However,
due to the small mass of 6 Li atoms, the Doppler shift resulting from scattering multiple
photons can cause significant detuning from the atomic transition. The Doppler shift
due to the initial velocity distribution of an ultracold gas is negligible. To estimate
the Doppler shift we consider an atom initially at rest. During the imaging pulse, the
velocity of the atom undergoes a random walk due to photon scattering, resulting in
59
an average final detuning of
Aw =
= =
hk 2
N
,
(3.7)
where k = 2Ir/A is the wavevector of the imaging light at A= 671 nm. The number
of scattered photons is
11I
N =- 2
ISAT
t
(3.8)
in the limit of low saturation and short pulse time t,, with r the linewidth. Sufficiently
small relative detunings Aw/F are obtained using pulse times of 10 ps or less. Pulse
times less than 10 ps also keep the distortion of the cloud due to heating below
observable levels.
3.2.2
Phase-Contrast Imaging
As an alternative to absorption imaging, phase-contrast imaging uses the phase shift
of off-resonant light to produce an image. Because it uses off-resonant light, phasecontrast imaging can potentially produce non-destructive images of the atomic cloud.
For phase-contrast imaging, we add a phase plate in the focal plane of the first
imaging lens after the vacuum chamber. A 200 pm diameter phase spot at the center
of the phase plate adds an additional phase shift of about ir/2 to the light passing
through it. Light scattered by the atoms passes through the entire area of the phase
plate, while light that does not interact with the atoms focuses on the phase spot and
receives an additional phase shift. The two components of the light field interfere on
the camera producing an image of the cloud. The intensity detected on the camera
is given by [77]
If = I [T + 2 - 2V2T cos (0 +
),
(3.9)
where T is the transmission coefficient, approximately 1 for far-detuned light, and
#
is the phase shift due to interaction with the atomic cloud. For imaging multiple spin
60
states, the total phase shift is
2
=-
1
(3.10)
,
where i is the column density and 6i = 2Aj/I is the relative detuning of the i-th
spin state, with Aj the absolute detuning in angular frequency units. Imaging two
spin states with light detuned halfway between the two resonances gives a phase
shift proportional to the difference in column density between the two spin states,
as in Ref. [141]. We used this method to directly measure the density difference of
two spin states when studying spin transport in polarized superfluids (Ref. [146] and
Section 4.4.2 of this thesis) and for the measurement of spin transport as a function of
scattering length (Ref. [145], Supplementary Material, and Figure 4-6 in this thesis).
3.2.3
Obtaining the 3D Density
Images recorded on the CCD camera allow us to directly measure the column density
h. In order to obtain the three-dimensional density n we must invert the relation
(3.4).
Due to the cylindrical symmetry of the atomic clouds, integration along a
direction perpendicular to the symmetry axis z preserves information about the full
density distribution. For imaging along the y axis, the 3D density n(r,z) is related
to the column density i(x, z) by
n(
h(x) =
x2 +y2)
dy = 2
_00
1 f69i
n (r) = -
7r
,.OX
A
jxj
n()rdr
V/r2_-X2
(3.11)
dx
x
/2 - r2'
(3.12)
omitting the z dependencies of n and h for clarity. We implement the inverse Abel
transform (3.12) numerically to find the density.
61
3.3
Measurement of the Trapping Potential
We calibrate the trapping potential due to the optical dipole trap using the measured
atomic density distribution and the local density approximation. The total trapping
potential in the hybrid trap follows
U(r,z)
=
mw,
z2 -
r
+ UODT(r)
(3-13)
The first term in (3.13) is due to magnetic forces, while the second term is due to the
optical dipole trap.
We determine the trapping potential as follows. The axial trapping frequency w, is
first obtained by measuring the oscillation frequency of the center of mass of an atomic
cloud along the z direction. We then image the atomic cloud at equilibrium in the
potential (3.13). We repeat the measurement multiple times. For each measurement
i, we obtain the density ni using the inverse Abel transform (3.12).
The density ni
follows the local density approximation (LDA) and therefore depends only on the
local potential,
ni(r,z) = ni (U(r, z)) .
(3.14)
The average also follows an LDA-like relation,
navg(r, z) =
1 E ni(r,z) = navg (U(r, z)).
imgs i
(3.15)
We proceed to invert Eqn. (3.15). Using multiple measurements of the density reduces
the noise in this processes.
The known trapping potential U(O, z) at r = 0 allows us to determine the function
navg(U) using
navg (U(0, z)) = navg(O, z).
Numerically inverting navg(U) gives U (nfavg).
(3.16)
Figure 3-3.a shows an example of
U(navg) determined in this way. We obtain the full trapping potential by evaluating
62
a
b
500-
,S
*
4-
4000 .0
Ca
.
300-
-100
..
S2-
0*
100-
-50
S00.
0%e
01
c0
0
'I
200-
0
-150
2 -
17
-
-0
I
,
4
3
2
0
10
-3
n av(10 m
3
)
20
30
40
50
r (jim)
Figure 3-3: Measurement of the trapping potential using the density distribution. a,
The known axial dependence of the trapping potential allows us to determine the
potential U as a function of the density navg averaged over several images. b, The
dependence of the density on the radial coordinate r (black curves), together with
the function U(navg), determine the potential energy UODT(r) due to the ODT (red
points). The solid, dashed, and dotted black curves show the densities versus r for
the three rows of pixels nearest to the axial center. The red curve is a fit to UODT(r)
using Eqn. (3.18)
U(navg) over the density distribution,
U(r, z) = U [navg(r,z)] .
(3.17)
Subtracting the magnetic potential gives an independent measurement of UODT(r) for
each value of z. These values are averaged and fit to
UoDT(r) = Uo (e-2r22
- 1)
(3.18)
Figure 3-3.b shows examples of the radial dependence of navg together with the average
UODT(r).
63
64
Chapter 4
Spin Transport in Strongly
Interacting Fermi Gases
Transport experiments serve to characterize condensed matter systems, providing
insight into their fundamental properties, and yielding practical information for engineering applications. In ultracold Fermi gases, where we know the microscopic Hamiltonian, but not its exact solution, transport measurements allow us to test many-body
theories. Experiments on collective excitations and free expansion, for example, have
allowed measurements of the shear viscosity of ultracold Fermi gases [22] and comparisons with theory [18]. In systems with a spin degree of freedom, spin transport
provides another set of observables with which to test theories of the many-body
state. Additionally, an understanding of spin transport is crucial to the emerging
field of spintronics, which aims to use spin currents to create new electronic devices [53, 163, 157, 43].
With these motivations, we set out to measure the spin
transport properties of strongly-interacting Fermi gases in the universal regime of
s-wave contact interactions. In this chapter, we look at measurements of the spin
transport coefficients in a strongly-interacting Fermi gas across the Feshbach resonance and over a wide range of temperatures at unitarity [145] and in highly polarized
Fermi gases [146].
65
4.1
Experimental Realization of Spin Transport
Previous experimental studies of atomic Fermi gases have observed spin transport
in the presence of weak interactions [36, 44]. Here, we generate spin currents in the
strongly-interacting regime, and from the dynamics we obtain measurements of the
spin transport parameters.
Spin transport is generated by exciting the spin dipole mode of the system. The
spin dipole mode consists of a separation of the centers of mass of the spin states. The
displacement d = (zt - z) of the centers of mass characterizes the amplitude of a spin
dipole excitation. We use a magnetic field gradient to create the spin dipole excitation.
When the magnetic moments of spin up and spin down atoms are different, a magnetic
field gradient provides a spin dependent force. We use this spin dependent force to
separate the spin components, in a variation of Stern-Gerlach separation. Alternative
methods are also possible. A radio-frequency pulse on a spin-polarized cloud in the
presence of a magnetic field gradient would create a spin wave [44]; a Raman laser
pulse on a spin-polarized cloud would create a spin current [130].
The magnetic field gradient is produced by perturbing the trapping potential. The
trapping potential varies quadratically along the z axis, with the atoms resting at the
potential minimum. The z dependence of the potential results from a current running
through coils on either side of the vacuum chamber. Temporarily applying additional
current to one set of coils by means of a separate, computer-controlled power supply,
shifts the position of the potential minimum and creates a magnetic field gradient at
the position of the atoms.
For the magnetic field gradient to separate the spin states, the states must have
different magnetic moments. In the vicinity of the Feshbach resonances, however, the
magnetic moments of the three lowest hyperfine states of 6 Li are almost exactly equal
(the Paschen-Bach regime), as they approach eigenstates of electron spin m --.
To deal with this, we can either transfer one of the spin states to one of the three
upper hyperfine levels of the electronic ground state, which have the opposite magnetic
moment from the three lower levels, or we can reduce the magnetic field to a value
66
a
b
400 -
400-
200-200
.0
=L-2001
0-
0-
-200 --
200-
-400 --
4001-
0
20
40
60
Time (ms)
0
80
20
40
Time (ms)
60
Figure 4-1: A sequence of two magnetic field gradient pulses at 50 G separates the
spin components. a, After the first gradient pulse, the clouds oscillate at difference
frequencies due to their different magnetic moments (data and fits). b, A second
pulse 34 ms after the first removes most of the velocity of both clouds (simulation;
x's mark the times of the pulses).
well bellow the Paschen-Bach regime. We choose the latter, as it promises greater
stability. To select the field at which to apply the gradient, we must satisfy two
criteria: the magnetic moments must differ significantly, and the scattering length
must be small enough to avoid spin drag at this stage.
We find that 50 G meets the above criteria for spin separation. At 50 G, the ratio of
the magnetic moments of the lowest two hyperfine states is about 2.5. Consequently,
the clouds can be separated using a magnetic field gradient. The scattering length
between the two lowest hyperfine states at 50 G is a 12
=
-27.9 ao, where ao is the
Bohr radius [9, 169]. For typical densities of about n = 1 x 1018 m- 3 at this stage,
the corresponding mean free path is 1 = 1/na ~ 40 mm. Since the mean free path
greatly exceeds the cloud length of about 0.5 mm, the spin up and spin down clouds
easily pass through each other.
We create the spin dipole excitation by applying a pair of magnetic field gradient
pulses in the z direction at 50 G. Following the first pulse, the clouds begin to oscillate
with differing frequencies and amplitudes (Fig. 4-1.a). After 34 ms of free evolution,
the center of mass of the state 11) cloud reaches a position along the z axis that is
about opposite to the position of the state
12) center of mass along the z axis. At
that moment, we apply a second magnetic field gradient pulse to remove the total
center of mass velocity of the clouds (Fig. 4-1.b). The velocities of the two clouds
67
Measure
b
800-
400
600-
200
U400
Cooling
0
Spin-separate
'200
-
-1500
-1000
-500
0
500
1000
200
0
500
z (pm)
Time (ms)
1000
Figure 4-2: a, Experimental sequence for spin transport experiments. The spin mixture is created at 300 G. After a 500 ms ramp to 50 G, the spin states are separated
using magnetic field gradient pulses. The magnetic field is then quickly ramped to a
final value near the Feshbach resonance. b, Example of absorption images of clouds
in the two lowest hyperfine states at 834G, 7 ms after the final field ramp.
after 34 ms are in the same direction, with magnitudes closely matched to the ratio
of the magnetic moments, and the second pulse removes most of the relative velocity
as well. The gradient pulse sequence therefore results in the two spin states being
displaced symmetrically about z = 0, with approximately zero initial velocity.
Before separating the spin states, we must create a 50/50 mixture of the two,
as we start with a pure 11) cloud (see Section 3.1). The mixture can, in principle,
be performed at 50 G. However, we would like to perform some evaporative cooling
before exciting the spin dipole mode, since there is limited time for cooling afterward.
Cooling at 50 G is not practical, the collision time being 1/(no-v)
1s. On the other
hand, we cannot cool near the Feshbach resonance, as sweeping the magnetic field
down through the BEC regime on the way to 50 G would associate deeply-bound
molecules. We therefore prepare the system at 300 G, well away from the Feshbach
resonance, where the scattering length is nevertheless sufficiently large (-288ao [9,
169]) for efficient cooling.
Figure 4-2.a shows the complete sequence of magnetic field ramps. After cooling
at 300 G and creating a spin excitation at 50 G, we ramp the magnetic field to a final
value near the Feshbach resonance in about 2 ms. At the final field, the trapping
potential forces the two clouds to recombine. We then image the clouds after a variable
68
a
Time (1 ms per frame)
C
Time (1ms per frame)
d
E 500 -
120 -
400-
300200 - VA
80
"
40 -
100
0-
0-
0
50
100
150
200
Time (ms)
200
.
400
600
800
1000
Time (ms)
Figure 4-3: Collision of two spin-polarized clouds of fermions in different spin states.
(a) shows the difference in column densities of the two clouds (red: spin up, blue: spin
down) and (b) the total column density. Images are shown in 1 ms intervals during
the first 20 ms after the magnetic field is set to the Feshbach resonance at 834 G.
The collision leads to the formation of a high-density interface between the two spin
states. c. The separation between the centers of mass of the two spin states initially
oscillates at a frequency of 1.63(2) w,, where w, = 27r x 22.8 Hz is the trap frequency
in the axial direction. d At later times, as the clouds slowly diffuse into each other,
the center of mass separation decays exponentially. Even after half a second, there
is still substantial spin separation. The diffusion time indicates a diffusivity on the
order of h/m.
wait time. Figure 4-2.b shows an absorption image of the two spin components after
7 ms of wait time at the Feshbach resonance. Instead of passing through each other
as one might expect of ultra-dilute gases, the clouds collide forcefully, and only slowly
diffuse into each other. In the next sections we study this collision and the slow process
of diffusion. We will see how the macroscopic behavior of the system gives insight
into the fundamental, quantum-limited spin transport properties of the system.
69
a
500
b
500
600
600
S400
0
ca
C
600
S
200
50
200
1
g
T(400:400
200
600
400 -
d 60
400
60
200 12
400
0
50
100
150
200
0
50
100
150
Time (ins)
Time (ins)
Figure 4-4: Collision between spin up and spin down clouds with varying interaction
strength. After separating the spin components, the magnetic field is ramped to a
variable value near the Feshbach resonance to reach different interaction strengths.
The interaction parameter kFa, with kF = (67r 2n)"' 3 and n the central density per
spin component, was determined by averaging the values of kF obtained from images
taken after 200 ms of evolution time (not shown). The values of kFa are (a) 0, (b)
0.08, (c) 0.13, (d) 0.19, (e) 0.26, (f) 1.2, (g) oo, and (h) -1.5
4.2
Fermi Gas Collisions
Having separated the two spin states (which we will refer to as spin up and spin down),
we can observe the collision of the two clouds for different interaction strengths.
Figure 4-3 shows the collision of spin up and spin down clouds at the Feshbach
resonance.
As the centers of mass approach each other, density builds up at the
center of the trap, the clouds acting as essentially impenetrable objects.
After a
few milliseconds, pressure gradients overcome the trapping forces and the center of
mass velocities reverse. After the centers of mass move apart, the trap then forces
the centers of mass back together, and the process repeats. The clouds bounce off
each other several times, gradually dissipating energy. Going away from resonance,
the bouncing damps more quickly (Fig.4-4). For weak interactions, the clouds pass
through each other, undergoing a damped oscillation in the trap (Fig. 4-4.b).
The dynamics of the bouncing clouds consists of two modes.
The oscillatory
part of the motion constitutes an axial compression (breathing) mode of the total
density [153]. In this mode the cloud shrinks axially while growing radially, and vice
70
200
C
b
a
N
T
T
1.8-;.
-
0.8-
1.6-"
1.4--
(1.4.1.2-
~1.0
o
o6.6'-Ao
0 0.6-
____________
0E2
1/
1.2
0
8
4
12
0
4
8
_______
2-
0
12
(kFa)
(kFa)
12
8
4
Fa)1
Figure 4-5: Parameters fitted to the Fermi gas collision data in Fig. 4-3, normalized
by the axial trap frequency v,. The oscillation frequency (a) is intermediate between
the hydrodynamic and collisionless limits for the axial breathing mode of a trapped
gas, but switches to the dipole frequency v, for sufficiently weak interactions. The
damping times (b) and (c) attain their maximum values at the Feshbach resonance,
with the diffusive damping time (c) significantly exceeding the damping time of the
breathing mode (b).
versa. The viscosity in the region where the two spin states overlap causes damping
of the breathing mode. The second mode is the spin dipole mode. The spin dipole
mode consists of relative motion of the spin up and spin down centers of mass. The
breathing mode couples to the spin dipole mode because the spin states are separated,
generating a non-dissipative spin current (Jf in section 2.5.2). Additionally, the spin
up and spin down clouds diffuse into one another, following a dissipative spin current
that increases the overlap of the two clouds.
We fit the measured center of mass separation d = (z1
-
zt) to
d(t) = A 1 sin(27rv(t - to))e-/r + A2e±'/T + A 3e.t/n
(4.1)
The first term describes the contribution of the breathing mode, while the second
term describes the dissipative part of the spin transport. The third term has a short
time scale (- 3 = 5-10 ms) and accounts for rapid dissipation during the first collision,
likely due to atoms spilled out of the trap.
Figure 4-5 shows the fitted oscillation frequency v and the damping times ri and
71
T2
for the data in Fig. 4-3.b-h, normalized by the trap frequency. Near the Feshbach
resonance, the oscillation frequency is intermediate between the hydrodynamic value1
at unitarity [153, 10] of V12/5v, = 1.55v, and the collisionless value 2v,. At the
unitarity point, we find v = 1.63(2)v.
Going away from unitarity, the oscillation
frequency increases, approaching the collisionless limit. However, as the scattering
cross section is reduced further (Fig. 4-3.b), the frequency switches to about v, as the
character of the oscillation changes from an axial breathing mode to an underdamped
spin dipole mode.
Near the Feshbach resonance, the spin diffusion time r 2 exceeds the lifetime
T1
of
the breathing mode by almost an order of magnitude (Fig. 4-5.b,c). Both time scales
reach their maxmimum values at unitarity. For the breathing mode lifetime this
indicates a minimum in the viscosity on resonance, in agreement with measurements
of the axial breathing mode in unpolarized gases [10].
The maximum in the spin
diffusion time at resonance indicates a minimum in the spin diffusivity at resonance,
which we will explore next.
4.3
Measuring Spin Transport in a Trapped Fermi
Gas
The spin diffusion time
T2
of the previous section gives a measure of the spin transport
parameters of the system. To obtain a more formal measurement of the spin transport
properties, and to control the temperature, we now begin the measurement only after
the breathing mode has damped out. Working in the absence of the breathing mode
allows us to define spin transport coefficients for trapped gases that relate more clearly
to the intrinsic spin transport properties of a homogeneous gas.
'The hydrodynamic limit depends on the equation of state. For a unitary Fermi gas, at all
temperatures, the axial breathing mode frequency is s/i/5v, [153, 10, 154]. In the BEC limit it is
VI512v =1.58v [152|.
72
4.3.1
Definition of Spin Transport Coefficients for Trapped
Gases
Due to the inhomogeneous density of trapped gases, the transport properties that we
measure are related to the values for homogeneous gases by an average over the trap.
To this end, we define the equilibrium trap average of a function G(r) as
(G)o = 1
J
d 3r G(r) no(r),
(4.2)
where no = nT = n is the density per spin state at equilibrium and No
=
Nt = N is
the number of atoms per spin state.
After the breathing mode damps, the separation d of the centers mass of the two
clouds decays exponentially. From eqn. (2.50) for the spin drag force, the spin dipole
excitation evolves according to
(4.3)
d±+sd+W2d=0,
where FSD is the global spin drag coefficient for the trapped gas. Near equilibrium,
the global spin drag coefficient is related to the local value
"FSD
fSD
by
44SDUdz)(
f
(ud,z)o
where
ud,z
= vt,z - vj,z is the z-component of the difference in the local average
velocities of the two spin states. Equation (4.4) is obtained by integrating (2.51) over
the cloud to find the total spin drag force.
We measure the spin drag coefficient by fitting the separation of the spin up and
spin down centers of mass to
d(t) = doe-t/.
(4.5)
The relaxation time r is analogous to the parameter r2 of Section 4.2. From the
73
equation of motion (4.3), the spin drag coefficient is
In the overdamped regime applicable to most of the experiments, wzr
becomes
FsD = Wz2r.
(4.6)
1/1-.
IFSD =SW2z T+
>> 1, and (4.6)
In practice, we use the full expression (4.6) to find FSD-
Including an additional piece of information, the spin density gradient, gives a
measure of the spin diffusivity accessible in trapped gases. The spin diffusivity D6 is
defined by the spin diffusion equation (2.65),
Js = -bVn.
(4.7)
The spin diffusion equation holds locally at the total center of mass (the trap center 2 ). At the trap center, the z-component of the spin current density is Js,z(O) =
ii(O)ud,z(O), where ii(O) = (nt(O) + n.(O))/2 = nt(O) = n4 (O). To estimate the spin
current at the trap center, we replace the unknown local relative velocity
the trap average,
(ud,z) =
d
= -d/T.
Ud,z(0)
with
Using this we construct an estimate of the spin
diffusivity,
D =
9r
,
(4.8)
where 9 = o9ns(0) is the spin density gradient at the trap center. The measured spin
diffusivity is related to the spin diffusivity of a homogeneous gas Ds by the ratio of
the average relative velocity to the local relative velocity at the trap center,
Ds = b,(0)
(ud,z)
(49)
Ud,z(0)
4.3.2
Spin Transport Measurements
We first look at the dependence of the spin transport coefficients on interaction
strength. After preparing the spin excitation at 50 G, the magnetic field is set to
2
1n the lab frame, the total center of mass oscillates about the trap center. Here we work in the
center of mass frame, where the effective potential has its center located at the total center of mass,
according to the harmonic potential theorem of Section 2.4.1
74
a
01-b
+
30
0.10 20-
0.08 0.06-
1
+
0.04-
0.02- +
-0.6
+
-0.4
-0.2
0.0
0.2
1
(kFa)
0.4
,
0.6
0.8
9-+
+'
6-0.6
-0.4
-0.2
0.0
0.2
1
(kFa)
0.4
0.6
0.8
Figure 4-6: Spin transport coefficients as a function of interaction strength. The
system was evaporatively cooled to one of two different trap depths. Red circles:
higher depth, blue triangles: lower depth. At unitarity, cooling to the higher trap
depth gives TITF = 0.32(1), while cooling to the lower trap depth gives T/TF =
0.16(2). The spin drag coefficient (a) attains it maximum value on resonance. Solid
lines show Lorentzian fits. The spin diffusivity (b) is minimum on resonance, and
shows no dependence on temperature in this range.
a variable value near the Feshbach resonance, to set the scattering length for the
measurement. We use the time during which the breathing mode damps to apply a
variable amount of cooling to the clouds. Cooling is applied by reducing the depth
of the optical dipole trap. The time available for cooling is limited by the relaxation
of the spin dipole excitation to a few hundred milliseconds.
Figure 4-6 shows the spin drag coefficient and spin diffusivity over a range of
interaction strengths. The spin drag coefficient is maximal at the Feshbach resonance,
while the spin diffusivity is minimal there. This makes sense, as the collision rate is
highest at the scattering resonance, leading to maximum spin drag and minimal spin
diffusion. Data are taken for cooling to two different trap depths. The blue triangles
in Fig. 4-6 show measurements made using the lower trap depth, while the red circles
show measurements made using the higher trap depth. On resonance, the lower depth
gives a temperature of 0.16(2) TF, and the higher depth gives 0.32(1) TF, where TF is
the central Fermi temperature. Comparing the two data sets, the spin drag coefficient
is greater at the higher temperature, while the spin diffusivity shows no dependence
on temperature in this range.
To further observe the effect of temperature on the spin transport coefficients,
75
we work at unitarity and vary the temperature. We can reach a wide range of temperatures by varying the duration and depth of the cooling ramps both at unitarity
and during the preparation phase at 300 G. Rapid, inefficient, evaporation at 300
G allows us to increase T/TF to about 1. To go beyond TITF
-
1, we heat the
cloud further by releasing it from the optical dipole trap and recapturing it, using
a relatively deep trap. The final trap depth is chosen so as to maintain a constant
temperature, by allowing a small amount of evaporation during the measurement,
to counteract extrinsic and intrinsic heating sources. The decrease in atom number
during the measurement is typically 10-30%. We reach temperatures ranging from
about 0.14
TF
to 11
TF.
The spin transport coefficients as a function of temperature at unitarity are shown
in Fig. 4-7. The spin drag coefficient reaches a maximum value of approximately
0.1 EF/h for T ~ TF. At higher temperatures, the spin drag coefficient scales as T-/2,
in agreement with the expected high-temperature scaling for resonant interactions,
1 2
/ , discussed in Section 2.5.4.
FSD oc ncv c '(T/TF)
j'sD = 0.16(1)-E-(T/TF)
around
TF
2
1/
For T/TF > 2, we find
. The crossover from classical T-1/ 2 scaling to the plateau
shows the effects of quantum degeneracy: as the temperature is lowered
towards TF, the characteristic velocity ceases to drop with decreasing temperature,
and becomes fixed to the Fermi velocity.
Below TF, the spin drag coefficient begins to decrease with decreasing temperature.
This is expected in Fermi liquids due to Pauli blocking, which predicts that the spin
drag coefficient should eventually exhibit T 2 scaling as T -+ 0 [160, 117, 17, 16].
However, the effective collision rate for density excitations is predicted to increase at
low temperatures due to pairing correlations [127].
This contrast suggests that the
effect of pairing on spin and density excitations may be qualitatively different. In a
simple picture, spin currents require the flow of unpaired atoms, whereas collective
density excitations affect paired and unpaired atoms alike.
The temperature dependence of the spin diffusivity is shown in Fig. 4-7.b.
high temperatures, we find D, = 5.8(2)
At
(T/TF) 3 / 2 for TITF > 2. This scaling agrees
with the expected classical behavior for resonant interactions, D, oc v/no- oc T 3 /2. For
76
a
b
0.12-
100
LL. 0.10
+
4
.4--
I
E
0.06-
0.1
10
TITF
234s
234
s678
T/TF
Figure 4-7: Spin transport coefficients as a function of temperature at unitarity. The
spin drag coefficient (a), normalized by the Fermi energy at the trap center, exhibits a
broad maximum around T = TF. We find agreement between measurements taken at
three different axial trapping frequencies, 22.8 Hz (red circles), 37.5 Hz (blue triangles)
and 11.2 Hz (black squares). The spin diffusivity (b) reaches a constant minimum
value of 6.3(3) h/m at low temperatures. The solid lines show fits to the classical
scaling laws for T/TF > 2.
temperatures below TF, the spin diffusivity reaches a minimum value of 6.3(3) h/m.
The spin diffusivity in Fermi liquids is expected increase with decreasing temperature
as T
2
for sufficiently low temperatures [16].
The temperatures reached here may
not be low enough to see the expected low-temperature upturn of D,.
A recent
calculation [50] of the spin diffusivity in the unitary fermi gas based on the LuttingerWard formalism shows a very small upturn in D, in this temperature range, consistent
with the uncertainty in our measurements.
While the high-temperature scalings of the data agree with the classical calculations for homogeneous gases, the absolute values differ by a multiplicative factor. In section 2.5.5 we found the high-temperature limits fsD = 0.90E
DS= i-i$
(/2.
and
The measured spin drag coefficient at high temperatures is
smaller by a factor of 5.6(4), while the measured spin diffusivity is larger by about
the same factor, 5.3(2). We attribute these factors to the inhomogeneous density and
velocity distributions of the trapped system. The relation (4.4) between the local and
global spin drag coefficients yields a simple expression for this multiplicative factor
77
in the high-temperature limit,
"SD
=
FSD(0)/a,
(4.10)
ff nOud,zdar
2 d 3
'
(4.11)
with
a = no(0)
fn 2 Ud,zdar
where we have used FSD oc n in the high-temperature regime. For a uniform system
a reduces to 1, while for a harmonically trapped system with a uniform drift velocity
a = 23/2 = 2.8. However, the drift velocity profile cannot be uniform: even if it
starts out uniform, spin currents would get damped faster in the center of the overlap
region of the two clouds, where the collision rate is high, than in the wings, where
it is low. A non-uniform drift velocity profile will develop. For example, a quadratic
drift velocity profile Ud,(r) = ax 2 + by 2 + cz 2 will result in a = 25/2 - 5.7. Close
to the trap center, by symmetry the drift velocity will behave like a constant plus a
quadratic function of position. The actual value of a should therefore lie between 2.8
and 5.7.
For the spin diffusivity, the effect of the trap can in general involve a different
multiplicative factor. Equation (4.9) gives
D5 = D,(0)a',
(4.12)
a' = (Ud')
(4.13)
where
which can in general be different from a. However, by considering the Euler equations
in the high-temperature regime, one can show that a' ~ a (see [145], Supplementary
Information).
The measurements of spin transport shown here offer a first detailed look at the
spin transport properties of ultracold Fermi gases. As one of the fundamental dissipative processes in a Fermi gas, spin transport provides a new set of physical properties against which to test many-body theories. For example, the Luttinger-Ward
78
formalism, proven to be accurate at calculating the equation of state [69, 70, 85]
and viscosity [51, 22] of the unitary Fermi gas, has since been extended to calculate
the spin transport coefficients of the unitary Fermi gas, showing good qualitative
agreement with the results reported here [50]. The high-temperature regime of our
measurement also poses an interesting theoretical challenge, namely to use the known
local properties of the system to predict its global behavior. This challenge has been
undertaken analytically [15], using a starting point analogous to Eqn. (2.62) to obtain the spin relaxation time, and numerically, using a simulation of the Boltzmann
transport equation [59, 60, 61].
4.4
Spin Transport in Polarized Fermi Gases
Spin imbalance provides an important degree of freedom in experiments on ultracold Fermi gases. By increasing the spin imbalance beyond the Pauli (or ClogstonChandrasekhar) limit for superfluidity, strongly-interacting Fermi gases can remain
normal down to zero temperature [29, 24, 172, 141, 105]. This allows access to the
low-temperature normal phase, a realization of a strongly-interacting Fermi liquid.
Conversely, using a small spin imbalance, below the Clogston limit, allows one to
directly observe the superfluid transition through the phase separation of the polarized normal phase and the un-polarized superfluid phase [173].
In this section we
look at spin transport in spin-imbalanced gases with resonant interactions. For high
spin imbalance, we measure spin transport in the polaron regime, while for small spin
imbalance we observe spin transport in the superfluid phase [146].
4.4.1
Highly-Polarized Fermi Gases
In the limit where the number of spin down (minority) atoms is vanishingly small
compared to the number of spin up (majority) atoms, the minority atoms form polaron
quasiparticles [26, 31, 120, 132], where minority atoms are dressed by the majority
Fermi sea. The energy of a single polaron in a zero-temperature Fermi sea of spin
79
t
atoms has been described using the effective Hamiltonian [97, 17, 124]
p2
H = -apt + 2m*'
(4.14)
where p is the momentum of the polaron, m* is the polaron effective mass, pt is the
local spin t chemical potential, and a characterizes the polaron binding energy. The
parameters a and m*/m, where m is the bare mass of spin T and spin
4 fermions,
have
been measured experimentally [142, 132, 105, 104] and calculated theoretically [97,
30, 119, 116], giving a = 0.62 and m*/m ~ 1.2 at zero temperature.
As before, we consider the problem of spin transport induced by a spin dipole
excitation along the z direction.
Equation (2.50) gives the local spin drag force
exerted on the minority cloud,
dFrT =
d 3 r nTf SDV4,
m*
(4.15)
using m* as the effective mass of the spin down atoms.
In the limit N < NT, the motion of the spin
from the spin
4 cloud may
t cloud due to momentum absorbed
be neglected. The equation of motion of the spin
4 center
of mass Z is then [17]
m*Z + (1 + a)mW 2 Z +
Z N
d3r nf(r)
=0
rp (r)
(4.16)
where the factor of (1 + a) is due to the attraction of the minority fermions to the
majority cloud. The the momentum relaxation rate 1/rp is equivalent to the local
spin drag coefficient. We use the notation 1/rp for consistency with earlier work on
polarized Fermi gases [17].
Experimentally, we find that the spin dipole excitation is strongly damped. As
before, we fit the separation of the spin up and spin down centers of mass to d(t) =
doe-'/'. For each time series, we obtain the dimensionless relaxation time
; = hrWT/EFt.
80
(4.17)
C
a
1.0-
0.16-
0.14
0.9 s-
-
0.12
0.
b
2
%
+
0.10 -
0.s
1
2 3
T/rF T
0.08 0.06 0.04100 MM
0.1
T/T F
1
Figure 4-8: Spin transport in highly-polarized Fermi gases. (a) and (b) show twodimensional column density images of the minority and majority spin state, respectively, obtained using resonant absorption imaging in one run of the experiment. The
distance between the centers of mass in (a) and (b) is 34 ptm. c, Normalized relaxation time of the spin dipole mode of a highly-polarized Fermi gas as a function of the
reduced temperature T/TFT. The solid curve is the low temperature limit from [17],
. Inset: ratio
given by equation (4.20). The dashed curve is the expression 0.08
of the minority cloud size to the majority clouds size as a function of the reduced
temperature T/TFt.
1 relates to the fundamental properties of the gas as
-
M*/m
r
l/fp
=
1+a EFt/h'
-(4.18)
where
1
f dar n(r)v
4.(r)/rp(r)
TF
3
fd rn(r)v(r)
(4.19)
is the global momentum relaxation rate, equivalent to the global spin drag coefficient
FSD.
We have used the overdamped limit (wZr)
2
> 1 to obtain Eqn. (4.18) by
neglecting the second time derivative in Eqn. (4.16). This limit holds well in our
experiments, where r is always greater than 100 ms, and (wz-r) 2 > 200.
Figure 4-8 shows the measured values of the dimensionless relaxation time? as a
function of the reduced temperature T/TFt. T increases at low temperatures before
reaching a maximum of 0.13(3)EFT for T/TFT = 0.40(6), and decreases at higher
temperatures. We interpret the behavior of the relaxation time at low temperatures as
81
a consequence of Pauli blocking: as the temperature is lowered significantly below the
majority Fermi temperature, the phase space available for a minority atom to scatter
goes to zero. The reduction of spin drag at low temperatures observed here is more
pronounced than the reduction observed in the previous section, where the number
of spin up and spin down atoms was equal. In the highly-polarized case, spin drag at
T/TF = 0.15 reduces by 51(6)% from the maximum value, while in the equal-number
case, spin drag reduces by only 26(4)%. The difference in the amount of reduction
may indicate the effects of pairing correlations in the non-polarized gas [127].
As in the previous section, the global effect of spin drag depends on the density
and velocity distribution of the clouds. In the spin-imbalanced case, the ratio of the
cloud sizes changes going from the low temperature regime, where the cloud sizes
depend on the number of atoms, to the high temperature regime, where the cloud
sizes depend only on the temperature. The inset in Fig. 4-8 shows the ratio of the
cloud sizes R 4 /RT as a function of the reduced temperature, where RT(j) is the 1/e
width in the z direction from a two-dimensional gaussian fit to the majority (minority)
column density. The ratio RJ/RT increases with increasing T/TFT. Even at the lowest
temperatures, R 4 /RT remains significant, attaining a value of 0.7, due to the finite
minority fraction N/NT e
0.1. The effect of inhomogeneity is therefore reduced at
low temperatures, but should remain present.
We can compare our results for - at low temperatures to the low temperature
limit in Ref. [17],
1/Tp(O)= C
EFt/h
1+a
--
m
- -(T
TFT
(4.20)
for temperatures T < TFT. The prefactor c changes slightly from c = 213 = 6.89 ...
to c a 6.0 as the temperature rises from far below TF, where even the minority cloud
is degenerate, to temperatures where TF «T
< TFT and the minority is a classical
gas [17]. In our coldest data, T a 0.5TF4 and TF.
To compare our data to Ref. [17] using (4.20) we set c
0.3TFt, assuming m* = 1.2m.
=
, a = 0.6 and m* = 1.2m.
The comparison is affected by the inhomogeneous trapping potential in the experiment, as Eqn. (4.20) gives the local value of 1/rp at the center of the majority cloud.
82
The experimental data agree with the value from Eqn. (4.20) at the lowest temperatures measured (see Fig. 4-8). The deviation at higher temperatures is expected as
the T < TFT limit becomes inapplicable. The convergence of the experimental data
to the theoretical value at low temperature despite the inhomogeneity of the system
may be partly due to the reduced minority cloud size at low temperatures, which reduces the effects of inhomogeneity, as discussed above. Additionally, the variation of
the momentum relaxation rate with density will to some extent cancel at moderately
low temperatures, as 1/rp changes from increasing with increasing density at high
reduced temperatures to decreasing with increasing density due to Pauli blocking at
low reduced temperatures. The crossing of the experimental curve with the predictions for a uniform system at low temperatures therefore does not necessarily indicate
that the inhomogeneity is negligible at low temperatures in this measurement.
At high temperatures T
> TFT,, the spin transport properties of a trapped system
can be calculated from the Boltzmann transport equation. In the nr
< nt limit, the
classical result (2.89) for the spin drag coefficient becomes
1/Tp
_16x/2
EFt/h
11-r
97r3/2
TFt
-
T
1V2-(4.21)
(
For a harmonic trap, the normalized relaxation rate follows,
;=_
8
1_ 0. 16
Ff
973/2,
F
4.2
,
T
(4.22)
where e expresses the effect of the non-uniform velocity distribution, and follows
f
=
d 3 r v (r)e-au
-f2
ffd 3
Sdr v (r)e-Ou'
(4.23)
where U is the trapping potential (here assumed to be quadratic). For a quadratic
velocity profile, v(r) = ax2 + by 2 + cz 2 , the predicted ; is reduced by factor of E = 2.
We find that the high temperature result (4.22) with E = 2 leads to close agreement
with our experimental results (Fig. 4-8.c).
This model for the velocity profile is
interesting because it estimates the effect of the inhomogenous velocity distribution.
83
However, the velocity should remain non-zero everywhere, rather than going to zero
at the origin as in the quadratic case. The actual velocity profile may have deviations
from quadratic dependence at larger distances from the trap center that compensate
for the non-zero velocity at the center.
4.4.2
Spin-Imbalanced Superfluids
We extend the method of the previous section to study spin transport in Fermi gases
with resonant interactions and small spin imbalance. When the global polarization
Nt-N
is less than about 75% in a harmonically trapped Fermi gas at low temperature
and with resonant interactions, the system phase separates into a superfluid core
surrounded by a polarized normal state region [172, 141, 105]. The superfluid core is
visible as a sharp reduction in the density difference of the two spin states [141]. The
transition between the superfluid and the imbalanced normal regions forms a sharp
interface below a tricritical point, where the density imbalance jumps between the
two regions [143]. Scattering and spin transport at the interface between a normal
and superfluid Fermi gas have been considered theoretically in Refs. [159, 110].
To observe spin transport in an imbalanced gas containing a superfluid, we prepare
a spin mixture with a global polarization of 17(3)%. Phase contrast imaging is used
to enhance the sensitivity to small differences in density. An imaging pulse tuned
halfway between the resonance frequencies of the two states directly measures the
difference in the column densities (Fig. 4-9.a) while a second pulse, red-detuned from
both states (Fig. 4-9.b), provides additional information needed to reconstruct the
total column density in each state [143]. From the column densities of each state we
obtain three-dimensional density distributions using the inverse Abel transformation.
The two-dimensional spin density (Fig. 4-9.a) and three-dimensional spin density
(Fig. 4-9.c) show a reduction near the center of the trap, with the three-dimensional
density going to zero, characteristic of the superfluid core in imbalanced Fermi gases [141].
We have checked that the shell structure remains even after the spin density reaches
equilibrium. Additionally, estimates of the temperature confirm that it is cold enough
to contain a superfluid [146, 85].
84
-
C
d
10-
E
8-
1.0-
b
-6-
oO0.5-
4-
c0.0-
2-
0-.
0
100 200 300 400
Position (pm)
0.0
r
0.5
1.0 1.5
Time (s)
Figure 4-9: Spin transport in a superfliud Fermi gas. Phase contrast images are
taken with imaging light detuned (a) halfway between the resonance frequencies of
the two states and (b) at large red detuning from both states. The image in (a) is
proportional to the difference in column densities of the two states. The depletion of
the density difference in the center of the cloud indicates the superfluid region. It is
displaced from the center of the majority due to the spin dipole excitation.(c) shows
the difference in reconstructed three-dimensional densities of the spin up and spin
down clouds as a function of the z coordinate for z > 0. The depletion in the center
again indicates pairing and superfluidity [141]. An elliptical average over a narrow
range of the radial coordinate p is used to increase the signal to noise ratio. d, The
displacement of the spin up and spin down centers of mass relaxes exponentially,
indicating strong spin drag despite the presence of a superfluid.
Even in the presence of the superfluid core, we observe strong damping of the
spin dipole mode. Figure 4-9.d shows that the displacement d between the majority
and minority centers of mass along the z axis relaxes gradually to zero, rather than
oscillating as would be expected in a dissipationless system. The 1/e relaxation time
r = 360 ms corresponds to a spin drag coefficient of w 2r
=
0.06(1)EFt/h, close to
the maximum spin drag coefficient in non-polarized trapped Fermi gases at unitarity
(Section 4.3.2).
85
2.0
2.5
86
Chapter 5
Evolution of Pairing From Three
to Two Dimensions
A great variety of interesting condensed matter systems arise in two dimensions (2D).
Examples include the fractional quantum Hall effect and the Berezinskii-KosterlitzThouless (BKT) transition [82, 83]. In two dimensions, closed paths partition space
into distinct subsets, leading to new topological effects, such as anyon quasiparticles [106]. Two-dimensional solid-state systems arise at surfaces and in bulk crystal
structures. In the latter case, the system consists of an array of coupled 2D planes.
Examples include some organic superconductors [88, 144] and the cuprate superconductors [155].
With ultracold atom experiments, we can tune the dimensionality of the system
by applying an external potential, allowing explorations of physics in reduced dimensions. For example, the BKT transition has been studied using bosonic atoms in
an optical lattice potential [68].
In this chapter we study the physics of fermions
in two dimensions, and in the dimensional crossover from three to two dimensions,
where the system is three-dimensional (3D) but anisotropic. The dimensionality is
tuned using an optical lattice potential. We measure the binding energy of stronglyinteracting fermion pairs as a function of lattice depth, observing the evolution from
three to two dimensions. The anisotropic 3D regime presents greater challenges to
describe theoretically, but also may provide access to new phases of matter [39, 40].
87
The two-dimensional limit restores some simplicity by eliminating the anisotropy as
a parameter, but at the same time allows more precise comparisons with theory.
5.1
Dimensional Crossover in a 1D Lattice
5.1.1
Single-Particle Physics in a 1D Lattice
Strongly confining a three-dimensional gas along one direction produces an essentially two-dimensional system by freezing out motion along the third direction. This
confinement can be provided using, for example, a strong harmonic potential [45],
or using a one-dimensional (D)
lattice [100].
We use a 1D standing-wave optical
lattice generated by retroreflecting a 1064 nm laser beam. This produces a periodic
potential,
VL (z)
with depth V and lattice spacing d
=
=
Vo sin 2 (7rz/d),
(5.1)
532 nm. The solutions to the Schr6dinger
equation for a single particle in the potential (5.1) are free in the x and y directions
and follow Bloch's theorem along the z direction:
qn,q(z) =
u,,q(z)eiqz, where unq(z)
is periodic with period d, q is the lattice momentum, and the index n = 0, 1,2, 3...
labels the energy band. The energies E,,q are periodic in q with period 27r/d, so q is
chosen to lie in [-7r/d, 7r/d]. As the lattice depth increases, the energy EO,q of the first
Bloch band becomes flat, and the group velocity goes to zero. Wavepacket centered
at a given lattice site will then tend to remain at that site. Atoms therefore become
localized in the z direction when the lattice depth is large.
The 2D limit corresponds to deep lattices, where the gas is confined to an array
of 2D layers.
In the pressence of a 1D lattice there are two degrees of freedom
associated with motion in the z direction: the index of the Bloch band and the
tunneling between lattice planes. We will load atoms into the first Bloch band, so
the tunneling rate remains as the free parameter that we tune to interpolate from 3D
to 2D. We parametrize the tunneling rate using the lattice depth, normalized by the
88
recoil energy,
h27r2
ER =
2md2
(5.2)
> 1, with a flat dispersion
A deep lattice corresponds to Vo/ER
EO,q and a low
tunneling rate.
For sufficiently large VO/ER, the atoms see only the local minima of the lattice
potential, and system becomes equivalent to a quasi-2D gas confined by a strong
harmonic trap in the z direction. The corresponding harmonic oscillator frequency
follows by expanding (5.1) to leading order in z,
hwz = 2 VVOER.
(5.3)
We will use htw from (5.3) to compare our measurements in deep lattices to predictions
for harmonicaly confinemed gases.
Band Structure Calculation
Understanding our measurements often requires us to solve the single-particle Schr6dinger
equation in the lattice potential (5.1). We compute the eigenstates and energies using
the Schr6dinger equation in momentum space,
h
2
2m
V(k) - V
2
[
k
+
4
k +r)]
d
= Eb(k)
d
(5.4)
where 1(k) is the Fourier transform of the wavefunction O(z). For a state with lattice
momentum q, k(k) is non-zero for k = q+ 2,rj/d, for any integer
j. The wavefunction
is then
#q(z)
(5.5)
cjei(q+2j/d)z
=
j=-oo
and the Schr6dinger equation (5.4) becomes, after dividing by ER,
qd(2
- + 21
7r
V
2
V0
-(C.7_1
4
-
89
+ C3+1) =
Eq
Cy.
ER
(5.6)
The Hamiltonian for each q corresponds to a tridiagonal matrix. The eigenvalues gives
the band energies Enq. We find the eigenvalues numerically by restricting
Ij I
jma.
For lattice depths V < 30ER, the lower eigenvalues converge to high precision for
Jmax > 5.
5.1.2
Bound States and Scattering in Two Dimensions
> 1, we approximate the lattice potential as a harmonic potential with
For VO/ER
frequency w, and harmonic oscillator length l, =
nudz
. In the 2D limit, a bound
state exists for all values of the s-wave scattering length a between fermions of unequal spin. The binding energy is given by [115, 12]
EbD = hwz F2 (lz/a),
(5.7)
where F 2 is found by inverting the relation
z=
a
with c=
1 1 - e-2u
(5.8)
-. In particular, at the Feshbach resonance, where lz/a = 0, the binding
rzwz
energy becomes
m,
fo
du
V4;rUs3
ED =
0.244hwz [12]. In contrast, the binding energy in 3D is EbD
which vanishes when 1/a = 0.
The binding energy determines the s-wave scattering amplitude in 2D. For colli-
sions with relative momentum hk, the scattering amplitude is [115]
f(k)
where a2D
=
h/mE.
2r
- ln(ka 2D)
iir/2'
+
(5.9)
The scattering cross-section in 2D has units of length and is
given by [115]
o-(k) =
90
4k
.
(5.10)
5.1.3
Two-Body Physics in a 1D Lattice
The two-body problem in free space reduces to a one-body problem for the relative
motion (Section 2.2.1). In a harmonic trap, the relative motion again decouples from
the center of mass motion. This can be seen by writing the potential energy of two
colliding particles in terms of the center of mass and relative coordinates,
1
2
mwz
2
Vh(z1) +Vh(z2)
where z = z1
-
z2 , Z
=
+ Z2
21
2
1
2z2
- IrWz2 + -MWEZ
2
2
(5.11)
(zI + z 2 )/2, m, = m/2, and M = 2m. In the pressense of a
1D lattice, however, the relative and center of mass coordinates no longer decouple,
VL(zl) + VL(z2)
=
V [sin 2 (7rzi/d) + sin 2 (7rz 2 /d)]
(5.12)
=
V [sin 2 (7r(z + Z/2)/d) + sin 2 (7r(z - Z/2)/d)]
(5.13)
In this case one must retain both the relative coordinates r = r, -r
2
and the center of
mass Z along the z axis when solving the two-body problem. Reference [109] solves
the two-body problem in a 1D lattice, finding the binding energy
Eb
= FL (V/ER, d/a).
ER
(5.14)
in terms of a dimensionless function FL. As expected, Ref. [109] finds that FL increases
with VO/ER for fixed d/a because the binding energy is greater in the 2D limit than
in 3D.
5.1.4
Mean-Field Theory in Two Dimensions
As in 3D, the mean-field approximation for the Hamiltonian of a fermionic system
near the ground state is [155, 103, 123, 133]
HMF - pN
=
EG((p) + E
k
91
EkQ-'T4Ykt + -Yk'-),
(5.15)
where -Yk,, are the Bogoliubov operators and the excitation spectrum is
Ek =
withEk =
2
(kE -p)
(5.16)
+ A 2,
2.
In 2D, Refs. [103, 123] find
A
=
(5.17)
V2EFEb
and
(5.18)
where EF is the Fermi energy and Eb is the binding energy at zero density.
Removing one particle from the many-body ground state and adding it to the
vacuum leaves behind a quasiparticle excitation. The corresponding change in energy
is [155]
AE(k) = (EG + Ek -
A + Ek) -
EG = Ek
-
(A - Ek)
(5.19)
The minimum energy cost occurs at k = 0, and is given by
AE(0)= V/1 2 +A
2
-
p = Eb.
(5.20)
Remarkably, the energy cost to break a pair in 2D mean-field theory is given exactly
by the binding energy of two particles in vacuum.
As in 3D, mean-field theory describes a smooth crossover from BEC to BCS superfluidity. The crossover is parametrized by the 2D interaction parameter ln(kFa2D).
The BEC side of the crossover corresponds to ln(kFa2D) < 0, while the BCS side
corresponds to ln(kFa2D) > 0 [123]. When ln(kFa2D)I < 1, the scattering amplitude
(5.9) at the Fermi surface is large and one expects the mean-field approximation to
become inaccurate.
92
Measurement of Binding Energies in a 1D Lat-
5.2
tice
We measure the binding energy of fermion pairs in a 1D lattice using RF spectroscopy.
To minimize final state interaction effects we use states 11) and
13) as the initial states
for spectroscopy.
5.2.1
Experimental Procedure
We start with a spin polarized cloud of 6 Li atoms in the lowest hyperfine state 11)
after sympathetic cooling with
23
Na. After raising the magnetic field to 568 G, where
the scattering lengths between all three lowest hyperfine states of 'Li are less than
200 ao, and in particular where a 13 = 0 [169], we create an equal mixture of states
11) and
from
13) using a 50% Landau-Zener transfer to 12), followed by a 100% transfer
12) to 13). Working at a 13
.
0 allows the 2
-4
3 transition to proceed without
decoherence due to final state interactions.
After creating the 1-3 mixture, we raise the magnetic field to a final value in the
vicinity of a broad Feshbach resonance centered at 690 G. The gas is then cooled
by lowering the depth of the optical dipole trap and the optical lattice is ramped
up over 100 ms. The optical lattice crosses the optical dipole trap at an angle of
about 0.5 degrees, allowing the optical lattice to be retroreflected after the chamber
while the dipole trap beam is dumped. An RF pulse is applied to probe the gas on
either the 1-2 transition or the 3-2 transition. We mainly use a pulse duration of
1 ms but also tested shorter and longer pulses. We then image state 2 and either
state 1 or state 3. The fraction of atoms transfered to state 2 is obtained from each
run of the experiment. The experiment is repeated with different pulse frequencies
to obtain a spectrum. For the magnetic field range used here (650-834 G), the 1-2
transition is located at about 76 MHz and the 2-3 transition is at about 82 MHz. The
probe frequency is scanned over a few hundred kHz to observe the spectral features
associated with bound states and pairing.
93
To ensure loading into the first Bloch band, the Fermi energy and temperature
of the cloud are kept below the energy of the second band. The 2D Fermi energy
E2D _
27mhe,
with f the 2D density per spin state at the center of the cloud, is
typically h - 10 kHz. The bottom of the second band is at least one recoil energy
ER = h- 29.3 kHz above the bottom of the first band in shallow lattices, and up to
about h 300 kHz for the deepest lattices. The temperature is estimated by fitting to
the atomic density distribution after free expansion and found to be on the order of
the Fermi energy.
Lattice Calibration
To measure the depth V of the lattice, we use Kaptiza-Dirac diffraction or lattice
modulation spectroscopy.1 For Kaptiza-Dirac diffraction, the lattice is pulsed on for
a short time t,, imprinting a phase grating on the atomic wavefunctions.
the pulse is short compared to the recoil time
tR
When
= h/ER = 34 ps and the atomic
momentum distribution is well-localized in k-space, discrete diffraction orders appear
after a few milliseconds of free expansion (Fig. 5-1.a). The fractional population in
the n-th diffraction order is given by
J2 (
P =n Jn
(5.21)
h
where Jn is the Bessel function of order n.
In practice, the populations of the
diffraction orders are measured for several lattice depths and the signal
VPD
from
a monitoring photodiode is recorded for each lattice depth. The data is then fit to
P
-
J 2 (aVPD), where a is a fit parameter (Fig. 5-1.b). The lattice depth for a given
photodiode value is then V =
.7rtp VPD.
Before using Kapitza-Dirac diffraction for
calibration, the alignment of the optical lattice relative to the optical dipole trap is
checked to ensure that the atoms sit at the center of the lattice beam during the pulse.
Because of the requirement that the atomic momentum distribution be localized in
k-space, it is necessary to use a BEC or fermion pair condensate in order to obtain
'We at first used Kapitza-Dirac diffraction, and later began using lattice modulation spectroscopy,
which we judged to be more precise.
94
a
-3
-2
-1
0
+1
+2
C
+3
.I
400300-
0)
C
w
2000
1.0r
b
C
0.8-
C,
C
0.6
0
0
CL
218 kHz
100-
0
-2
2
Momentum (qd)
d
150E
0.4-
6
130-
0
a- 02
*0
0
0,0
e
140-
0,2
0.6 08 1.0
0.4
Lattice Power (a.u.)
12
120110-
14
*
I '
|
g*
i
80
200
20
Moduatin
Fequecy
'
24
k~z
1
Figure 5-1: The depth of the optical lattice potential is calibrated using KapitzaDirac diffraction (a and b) and modulation spectroscopy (c and d). For KapitzaDirac diffraction, the lattice is pulsed on for 2 ps and the fraction of atoms in each
diffraction order (a) is measured and plotted as a function of the control voltage for
the lattice power (b). Fitting Bessel functions provides a calibration of the absolute
depth of the lattice (curves in b). For modulation spectroscopy, the lattice depth
is modulated by a few percent for 300 ms, driving transitions from the first to the
second Bloch band (c). Increased tunneling in the second band causes the cloud to
grow along the lattice axis, with a maximum at the resonant frequency (d).
a strong signal. We mostly used a 2 3Na BEC but have also performed Kapitza-Dirac
diffraction using
'Li
2
molecular condensates.
diffraction orders with a
'Li 2
To obtain clean separation between
condensate, we found it necessary to ramp the magnetic
field near to the zero crossing of the scattering length.
Lattice modulation spectroscopy offers some benefits over Kapitza-Dirac diffraction for the purposes of lattice depth calibration. Modulation spectroscopy consists of
modulating the intensity of the lattice laser to resonantly drive transitions to higher
Bloch bands (Fig. 5-1.c). Exciting the higher bands results in an increased cloud size
due to tunneling along the lattice axis (Fig. 5-1.d). Resonant excitation occurs when
the modulation frequency matches the frequency of the transition from the lowest
band to one of the higher bands. For example, to drive the 0 to 1 transition, we
modulate at a frequency of hwm
= Elq -
EOq, where q is the quasimomentum of the
95
atoms to be excited. A further refinement of this technique is to apply band-mapping
by ramping down the lattice linearly over about 1 ms and then allowing the cloud to
expand freely for a few ms. The Bloch states are then adiabatically mapped to momentum eigenstates, and one can resolve the momentum dependence of the transition
frequency to obtain a more precise determination of the lattice depth.
5.2.2
RF Spectra in a 1D Lattice
When the system absorbs an RF photon of energy hfrf, the hyperfine state of one of
the atoms is changed to 12). The change in energy of the system, not including the
hyperfine energy hvhf, is then hv = +h(vrf -
vhf),
where the plus symbol corresponds
to a 11) -+ 12) transition, and the minus symbol to a
13)
to v as the RF offset (relative to the hyperfine frequency
-4
12) transition. We refer
vhf).
An RF offset near zero flips the spin of unpaired atoms, while a sufficiently large
positive offset can break pairs. For a two-body system, the threshold for breaking a
pair is the two-body binding energy Eb. In the many-body state this pair-breaking
threshold may differ from the two-body binding energy. However, in Section 5.1.4
we saw that the pair-breaking threshold in the mean-field approximation in 2D remains equal to the two body binding energy. We will regard the threshold measured
experimentally as a generalized binding energy Eb that may depend on density.
Figure 5-2 shows an example of an RF spectrum. At negative RF offset we see a
peak corresponding to a bound-to-bound transition. This occurs at an RF offset of
hVhb = Eb - Eb,
(5.22)
where Eb is the binding energy in the initial state, and Es is the binding energy in
the final state. Since we use the 1-3 mixture, the final state binding enegy is always
significantly greater than the initial state binding energy in the range of magnetic
fields used.
This is because the scattering length in the final state is a 2 3 or a 12 ,
depending on whether we probe the 1 -+ 2 or 3 -+ 2 transition, and both are positive
but smaller than
Ia13.
Consequently, Es > Eb and the bound-to-bound transition
96
ci*
4-
E
0
-500
-400
0
100
200
RF offset (kHz)
Figure 5-2: Example of an RF Spectrum of strongy-interacting fermions in a 1D
lattice. Here the lattice depth is 9.59(7) ER and the interacting parameter d/a is
-0.01(4), corresponding to resonant interactions in 3D. The spectrum shows three
features, a bound-to-bound transition at negative RF offset, a free-to-free transition
at zero offset, and a bound-to-free transition at positive offset.
occurs at negative RF offset. At v
=
0 we see a peak due to transfer of unpaired
atoms. The broad asymmetric feature at positive RF offset is the pair dissociation
spectrum. The long high-frequency tail results from breaking pairs into free atoms
with non-zero momentum.
The threshold of the dissociation spectrum determines
the binding energy.
RF spectra are recorded for various lattice depths and interaction strengths. Figure 5-3 shows examples of spectra over a range of lattice depths at the 3D Feshbach
resonance and on the BCS-side of the resonance at 721 G, where fermion pairing in
3D is a purely many-body effect. At the lowest lattice depths, the spectra show only
a single peak, shifted to positive offset frequencies due to many-body interactions.
This is similar to the case without a lattice [137, 131]. However, as the lattice depth
is raised, the single peak splits into two and a clear pairing gap emerges.
5.2.3
Observed Binding Energies
Binding energies are determined from the frequency of the pairing threshold. To
obtain a simple estimate of the threshold, one could fit a line to the steep part of
the dissociation spectrum, and obtain the zero-crossing. However, this leads to an
under-estimate of the binding energy due to experimental broadening mechanisms.
To obtain a more accurate measurement of Eb, we fit the measured spectrum to the
97
a
b
M
E
0
S
0
50
100
150 200
0
U
20 40 60 80 100
RF offset (kHz)
Figure 5-3: Evolution of fermion pairing in the 3D-to-2D crossover in a onedimensional optical lattice, observed via RF spectroscopy. Shown is the transferred
atom number versus RF offset frequency relative to the atomic hyperfine splitting.
a, Spectra at the Feshbach resonance at 690.7(1) G with d/a = -0.01(4). Lattice
depths from top to bottom in units of ER: 1.84(3), 4.8(2), 6.1(2), 9.9(4), 12.2(4),
18.6(7), and 19.5(7). b, Spectra on the BCS side at 720.7(1) G, d/a = -1.15(2).
Lattice depths in units of ER: 2.75(5), 4.13(7), 4.8(1), 6.0(2), 10.3(2), and 18.1(4).
98
a
b
0.08.2
4-J
0.04
L
~
0.00
0
100
200
RF Offset (kHz)
300
0
100
200
300
RF Offset (kHz)
Figure 5-4: Fitting the lineshape for bound-to-free spectra in 2D. The spectrum shown
here is obtained with a lattice depth of 18.6(7) ER, d/a = -0.01(4), and a final state
binding energy of 574 kHz. a, The lineshape without final state interactions (orange
dashed curve) predicts a discontinuous onset and a more rapid decay with increasing
frequency than observed. Including the correction due to final state interactions
(blue curve) results in a successful fit. b, We convolve the theoretical lineshape with
a gaussian function of variable width to account for experimental broadening. In this
case the optimal gaussian has a width of wm = 3.6(4) kHz.
predicted lineshape for dissociation of molecules in 2D [89],
1(V)
(hv - 2 Eb) 2
In2 (Eb/Eb)
V
In ((hv - Eb)/E) + 72
(5.23)
The first factor matches the spectrum one finds by applying Fermi's golden rule to
the bound state and assuming a non-interacting final state, while the second factor is
due to interactions in the final state. In 3D, final state interactions having large E
affect the high-frequency tail of the pair dissociation spectrum but have a vanishing
effect near threshold [28]. However, in 2D, Eqn. (5.23) shows that the large energy
scale of the final state interactions has an observable effect even near the threshold.
Figure 5-4.a compares the theoretical lineshapes with and without the final state
correction to one of our spectra. Final state interactions cause the spectrum to rise
continuously from zero rather than discontinuously jumping to the maximum value,
as it would without final state interactions. The behavior of the high-frequency tail
is observably modified by the final state interaction. Fitting our spectra with a pure
power law tail typically gives a 1/v
1
.5 law rather than 1/v
the logarithmic correction as in (5.23) yields a good fit.
99
2
. However, 1/v
2
with
Including the final state
0.20-+
0.15U 0.10 . --
0.050.00
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Vo/ER
Figure 5-5: Binding energy Eb versus lattice depth V at several values of the 3D
scattering length a. Eb is normalized via the lattice frequency w,. Red circles:
results from spectra at 690.7(1) G and d/a = -0.01(4). Green triangles: 720.7(1) G,
d/a = -1.15(2).
Blue squares: 800.1(1) G, d/a = -2.69(1).
Curves show predictions
from Orso et al. [109]. Black dashed line: harmonic approximation result for 1/a = 0.
interaction requires knowing E,, which we obtain from spectra where a bound-tobound peak was measured, using a preliminary estimate of Eb for subtraction in Eqn.
(5.22).
The spectra are slightly broadened due to decoherence and a finite pulse time.
The broadening is mostly noticable at the pairing threshold.
We account for the
broadening by convolving the theoretical lineshape (5.23) with a gaussian function of
width wm (Fig. 5-4.b). The parameters Eb and wm are determined by a least-squares
fit to the measured spectrum. Typical spectra have wm of 5 kHz, consistent with
our estimates of broadening based on collisions and three-body losses. The Fourier
broadening is 1 kHz. Power broadening is about 5 kHz on the free to free transition,
and less than 1 kHz on the bound to free transition due to the reduced wavefunction
overlap. At low lattice depths, the 2D form for the paired spectrum should differ
from the exact shape that interpolates between the 3D and 2D limits. In the case
where the shape of the spectrum is given by the 3D limit, fitting to the 2D form
overestimates the binding energy by 8%.
Figure 5-5 shows the measured binding energies as function of VO/ER for several
100
interaction strengths.
The measured binding energies grow with increasing lattice
depth, and agree reasonably well with theoretical predictions for two-body bound
pairs in a 1D lattice [109].
The binding energy at the 3D resonance approaches
a constant multiple of hw, as the lattice depth increases, as expected from the 2D
limit [115, 12]. Figure 5-6.a compares the binding energies measured in lattices deeper
than 17ER to predictions in the harmonic quasi-2D limit [115, 12]. At the 3D Feshbach
resonance, we find Eb
=
0.232(16)hw, for deep lattices. This value is close to the
harmonic confinement result of 0.244hw, [12].
The exact calculation [109] predicts
a constant downward shift of the binding energy by 0.2ER for deep lattices due to
the anharmonicity of the sinusoidal potential.
For V of about 20ER, this gives a
prediction of 0.22w,,, also close to the measured value.
The upward deviation of the measured binding energies with resonant interactions
at low lattice depths (red circles in Fig. 5-5) relative to the two-body prediction of
Ref. [109] is likely due to many-body effects. When interactions are resonant, the
pair dissociation threshold in 3D occurs at about 0.5EF [131].
In shallow lattices
we expect that the threshold continues to receive an upward shift due to the Fermi
energy. On the 3D BCS-side, the many-body shift of the threshold is expected to be
smaller due to a smaller value of A in Eqn. (5.20). This is consistent with the data
at 721 G (green triangles in Fig. 5-5), which only shows a significant upward shift for
the lowest lattice depth measured.
Figure 5-6.b shows the binding energy measured in deep lattices normalized by the
exact two-body result [109] versus the many-body interaction parameter ln(kFa2D).
For ln(kFa2D) > 1, the binding energies are close to the two-body value, as predicted
by zero-temperature mean-field theory [123]. The data show a slight downward deviation for the strongest coupling, where Iln(kFa2D) I < 1. At fixed reduced temperature
T/TF, the relationship should be universal and would be interesting to study further.
101
a
b
0.5 0 1.0 -
0.4-
- -
"".
0.30.5-
0.20.10.0*
0.0
-0.4
-0.2
0.0
0.2
0.4
II
-1.0
I/a
-0.5
0.0
0.5
1.0
In(kIFa 2D)
Figure 5-6: a, Binding energy of fermion pairs versus interaction strength l/a for
deep lattices (V > 17ER). Solid curve: theoretical prediction in the 2D harmonic
limit [115, 12]. b, Ratio of the measured binding energy to the two-body result [109]
versus ln(kFa2D) for V > 17ER. Black diamonds: binding energy determined from
the bound to bound transition with resonant final state interactions. Other data
symbols: see Fig. 5-5. Horizontal line: zero-temperature mean-field theory [123].
5.3
Conclusions on Fermion Pairing in the 3D-to2D Crossover
In conclusion, we have measured the binding energy of fermion pairs along the
crossover from 3D to 2D in a one-dimensional optical lattice. Measurements were
performed at several lattice depths and scattering lengths, allowing quantitative comparison with theoretical predictions. Overall, the measured binding energies agree well
with the two-body binding energy calculated in Ref. [109]. In 2D, this agreement is
expected from mean-field theory [123]. Deviations from the two-body binding energy
in deep lattices are found to be largest in the strong-coupling regime, where mean-field
theory is expected to become inaccurate. While these measurements have addressed
pairing, superfluidity in a one-dimensional lattice will be an exciting topic for future
studies.
102
Chapter 6
Solitons in Superfluid Fermi Gases
Solitons are localized, non-linear excitations of fluids that propagate without dispersing. In superfluids, solitons occur when the phase of the order parameter jumps over
a short distance. In a dark soliton, the phase jump is accompanied by a reduction
in the superfluid density, while in a bright soliton it is accompanied by an increase
in the density. Solitons move through the superfluid with a velocity that depends
on the phase jump. Unlike sound waves, soliton excitations maintain their shape as
they evolve dynamically, are more localized, and move at speeds less than the speed
of sound. In this chapter, I describe experiments in which we create dark solitons
in a superfluid Fermi gas, and measure the soliton oscillation period over a range of
interaction strengths, from the BEC limit to unitarity.
6.1
6.1.1
Solitons in Superfluids
Soliton Solution of the Gross-Pitaevskii Equation
Although we perform these measurements using fermionic atoms, we can gain some
intuition for solitons in superfluids from the bosonic case. The order parameter of a
superfluid Bose gas is
(M(r,t)) =
<p(r,
103
t)e-,
(6.1)
a
C
1.0-1
(x
0.50.0-3,,
-10
v/c
,
-5
0
1
(x=+o)
-00)
0
b
V2
21--1
-
-10
c2
C2
-5
1
10
,
5
0
x/10
Figure 6-1: Soliton solution to the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. Plots show the spatial
structure of the macroscopic wavefunction at fixed time t = 0. a, Density normalized
by the background density no. b, Phase of the macroscopic wavefunction. Colors from
orange to black correspond to velocities v/c = 0.9, 0.8, 0.5, 0.2, 0. c, The normalized
wavefunction <5 = #/s'i- traces a chord across the unit circle in the complex plane
as x goes from -oo to oo.
where
#
is the macroscopic wavefunction and M is the chemical potential. In a weakly-
interacting Bose gas at zero temperature, the density is n = |#1
9, the macroscopic wavefunction can be written
#
2
= \,/ie'.
. In terms of the phase
The order parameter
evolves according to the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) equation,
=
~t
V2 + g |#|2 2mI
M+ U(r) #.
(6.2)
Here U(r) is the external potential, m is the mas of the bosons, and g is an interaction
parameter.
For contact interactions with s-wave scattering length a <
n-1/3, the
interaction parameter is 9 = 47rh 2a/m. For a homogeneous system, equation (6.2)
gives the equation of state M = gn. The characteristic length scale in equation (6.2)
is the healing length lo,
10 = h/f/mng = 1/V47ran.
(6.3)
The speed of sound is
h
C= W
=V
m10
m.m
(6.4)
Solving the GP equation (6.2) in 1D with U = 0 for solutions of the form k(x, t) =
104
#(X - Vt), one finds [52, 168]
O(x, t) =
where
lo= h/
x/
v2
V
tanh y
ii- + - 1c2
[_C
-mnog
and c =
.
-
2x-vt
-
,
(6.5)
10l
Figure 6-1 illustrates the solution (6.5) as a
function of x at t = 0. The minimum density occurs at x = vt and is nmin = no(v/c)2 .
Defining the phase jump 6 as
6
=
0(oo) - 0(-oo),
(6.6)
one sees from Fig. 6-1.c that the velocity is related to the phase jump by
v = -c sign(J) cos (6/2) .
(6.7)
The wavefunction (6.5) describes a large-amplitude excitation of a non-linear equation. Larger values of the non-linearity parameter g in the GP equation (6.2) lead to a
smaller healing length (6.3) and therefore a more localized excitation. This excitation
is considered a soliton because it is a non-linear excitation that propagates without
dispersing, its form being stabilized by the non-linear dynamics.
As a dark soliton propagates through a trapped atomic gas, it slows down toward
the edges of the cloud an eventually turns around. Using a Thomas-Fermi approximation for the gas density, one finds the oscillation period of the solitons to be [52]
TBEC =
V/Tz,
(6-8)
where Tz is the trapping period in the direction of the soliton motion, here labeled z.
As an excited state, the soliton should eventually decay to allow the system to
reach equilibrium.
The snake instability is a dynamic, non-dissipative, instability
where the soliton plane becomes deformed, and evolves into vortices [3]. Sufficiently
strong confinement of the gas parallel to the soliton plane can suppress this instability [139].
Solitons decay dissipatively by emitting phonons.
105
This leads to an
acceleration of the soliton, until it reaches the speed of sound and vanishes [52]. The
lifetime of a soliton due to dissipation is therefore determined by the dissipation rate,
and the initial velocity of the soliton. An initially slow soliton will take longer before
reaching the speed of sound and disappearing.
6.1.2
Solitons in fermionic superfluids
For a fermion-pair superfluid with field operators Pt(r) and *r(r), the order parameter
is
tP)
A =-
(6.9)
Dark solitons in superfluid Fermi gases have been predicted to occur due to a jump in
the phase of A(r) across a plane [46, 6, 93]. The field A therefore plays an analogous
role in the description of solitons in Fermi superfluids to the macroscopic wavefunction
#
in Bose superfluids. We can again write the order parameter in terms of its phase,
A = IAle' 6. As in the bosonic case, a phase jump of 7r is predicted to correspond
to a stationary soliton [6]. The dynamics of solitons in Fermi superfluids have been
studied using the Bogoliubov de Gennes mean-field equations [93, 138, 139].
The
soliton oscillation period is expected to grow from the BEC limit (6.8) to v/Tz at
unitarity.
6.2
Creating Solitons by Phase Imprinting
We create solitons in superfluid Fermi gases by directly imprinting a phase jump onto
the superfluid order parameter. A similar technique was used to create solitons in
Bose-Einstein condensates [19]. The phase jump is imprinted by applying a conservative potential UG(r) for a short time t,, using a pulse of a 532 nm (green) light.
For sufficiently short pulse times, the kinetic energy of the gas is negligible, and the
Heisenberg field operators pick up a phase factor,
,0, (r, tp)
=
e i UG(r) tp4,t (r, 0).
106
(6.10)
a
Top view:
Side view:
b
100
=L
-
-100
(x)C
Slit
0
-50
300 mm
12
50
-200
-100
0
100
200
10-
90mm
atoms
8
6-
(x)
Dichroic
0
50
-100
mirror
Position (pm)
Figure 6-2: Phase-imprinting technique. a, Optical setup for preparing the phaseimprinting beam. b, Absorption image of an atomic gas loaded adiabatically into
the phase-imprinting beam, showing the sharp change in the potential. c, Potential
energy due to the phase-imprinting beam (scaled to full power) as a function of
position in the axial direction.
The order parameter picks up twice the phase,
A(r, t) = e -2iUG(r)tp
(6.11)
To generate a soliton, we use UG with a sharp jump 6UG at the center of the
atomic cloud. To create a soliton, the imprinted phase must meet three requirements.
First, the duration t, of the pulse must be sufficiently short so that the gas cannot
respond during the pulse.
The pulse duration should therefore be approximately
h/p or less, where p is the chemical potential. For typical atomic densities near
the Feshbach resonance this gives about 50 ps. The second condition is that the
jump in the applied potential must occur over a length scale 1G on the order of or
smaller than the coherence length of the superfluid, a few micrometers. Finally, the
total phase difference 26Uct, must be on the order of 7r in order to generate a deep
soliton. Numerical simulations of the GP equation show that creating solitons by
phase imprinting is not 100% efficient. The soliton depth achieved is always less than
one would expect based on the applied phase. The efficiency increases as
1
G
and t, are
decreased. A low efficiency can be somewhat compensated by increasing the strength
of the applied potential UG, although at the cost of creating multiple solitons and
107
50
sound waves.
Figure 6-2.a shows the optical setup for phase imprinting. A sharp jump in the
phase-imprinting beam intensity is created by blocking half of the beam with an adjustable metal slit. The slit is imaged onto the atoms using a high-resolution imaging
system.
The imaging system is shared with the 671 nm light used for measuring
the atomic density distribution, described in Section 3.2. Figure 6-2.b shows an absorption image of the atomic cloud loaded adiabatically into the green light potential
UG(r). The sharp jump in density indicates the sharp jump in the potential. Using
lower light intensities to keep the atomic density finite, we measure the potential
energy created by the green light, employing a method similar to that described in
Section 3.3. Figure 6-2.c shows the measured potential, scaled up to full intensity.
The imprinting process creates two sound waves, as well as one or more dark
solitons. The sound waves propagate to the edges of the cloud and vanish, while the
dark soliton(s) remain. We use pulses that are sufficiently weak to create only a single
long-lived soliton. For our setup, this corresponds to pulse times of about 30-50 Ps,
and an imprinted phase of about 1.0 to 1.6 -r. Due to the imperfect efficiency of phase
imprinting, although the applied phase is greater than 7r, the phase jump remaining
after the soliton has formed is still less than -r. For example, as we reduce the pulse
time to zero, the initial velocity of the soliton monotonically increases until no soliton
is created.
For these experiments, we prepare a superfluid gas of fermionic
equal mixture of the lowest two hyperfine states, with 2 x 10
5
6
Li atoms in an
to 5 x 10 5 atoms per
state. The scattering length is tuned by varying the total magnetic field in the vicinity
of a broad s-wave Feshbach resonance centered at 832 G. We find that soliton creation
is more efficient in the BEC regime, so for measurements at fields B < 760 G we first
apply a phase imprinting pulse at 760 G and then ramp the magnetic field up to the
final field over about two trapping periods.
108
a
U_
C
C
800750700650600550-
100
01
-50-1001
-5
0
5
10
15
d
20
1.0 -
Additional time (ms)
-
b
0.80.6 -
CL
C
4.0-
'7
0
f
e
CM
0
3.0-
i
iAt
0.05-
0.00--
4.,
a: -0.05 -0.10 ]
2.0
500
0.20.0 o.s-
600
700
800
-200 -100
Ramp Field (G)
0
100 200
Position (gm)
Figure 6-3: Detection of solitons in a superfluid Fermi gas. a, Magnetic field ramps
used for imaging solitons using the rapid-ramp technique. b, Soliton signal (residual
depth) normalized by the standard deviation of background fluctuations, versus the
rapid-ramp field. c, Absorption image of an atomic cloud containing a soliton, after
rapid-ramp. d, Integrated optical density (red) and running average (black), from
the image in (c). e, Difference between the integrated optical density and its running
average (residual).
109
6.3
Detection of Solitons
Because of the small width of the soliton plane, we cannot observe solitons in situ. We
increase the length scale and density depletion (depth) of the soliton by ramping the
total magnetic field into the deep BEC regime, and turning off the trapping potential
to allow the cloud to expand. A similar method has been applied to observe vortices
in superfluid Fermi gases [170]. Ramping to the BEC regime converts Cooper pairs
into tightly bound, weakly-interacting molecules, and increases the coherence length.
The magnetic field ramps used for detecting solitons are shown in Fig. 6-3.a. After a
few ms of expansion in the deep BEC regime, we then ramp the magnetic field to 760
G for imaging. Fig. 6-3.b shows the strength of the observed soliton signal relative
to the background fluctuations as a function of the magnetic field used to access the
deep BEC regime. We use 577 G, where the signal is maximized.
We image parallel to the plane of the soliton and detect the soliton as a reduction
in the column density along a line, as shown in Fig. 6-3.c. To extract the position
of the soliton plane, we integrate the column density to obtain a one-dimensional
density (Fig. 6-3).d.
The one-dimensional density is then filtered using a running
average (black curve in Fig. 6-3.d). We subtract the running average from the onedimensional density to obtain a residual (Fig. 6-3.e).
The minimum value of the
residual indicates the position of the soliton.
6.4
Measurement of the Soliton Oscillation Period
We track the position of the soliton as a function of time, observing several oscillations
in the trap (Fig. 6-4). In some cases, in addition to sinusoidal motion, we observe an
increase in the oscillation amplitude over time (Fig. 6-5.a). The position at each time
is extracted and fit to a sinusoidal function with exponentially increasing amplitude.
The oscillation period determined from the fit is shown in Fig. 6-6, normalized by the
trap period T,. We use three different trapping frequencies v,
=
5, 10, and 22 Hz,
to check for systematic effects. Within each class of trapping frequencies, the precise
110
ET
01
1.0
0.5
1.5
2.0
3.0
2.5
Time (s)
Figure 6-4: Periodic oscillation of a dark soliton in a superfluid Fermi gas. Shown is a
false-color image of the density residual as a function of time. Each column of pixels
comes from a different run of the experiment. The example shown here is taken at
760 G, with kFa = 1.4(1)
a
b
200100
E 150S100-
0
0 -
0
S50-
-100
]
0
-
-0.10 -0.05
0.00
0.05
0.10
Residual
C
100
d
E 500
S
0
60-
0-0
-50-100-
40
0~
,_,_
500
~50
,_
V
20,_
,_
,_
,
1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500
Time (ms)
_-
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
Frequency (Hz)
Figure 6-5: Measurement of dark soliton oscillation period. (a) Shows an example of
a dark soliton in a unitary Fermi gas. Dissipation causes an observable increase in the
oscillation amplitude. To identify solitons, we require that the density residual be less
than a critical value of -2.5a, where o- is the standard deviation of the residual due
to background fluctuations. (b) shows a histogram of the background fluctuations.
The vertical dashed line shows -2.5o-. The positions extracted from (a) are shown in
(c) along with a fit to determine the oscillation period. (d) shows a histogram of the
fitted oscillation frequency determined using bootstrap resampling.
111
1.0
20
10-
01
3
2
1
1/kFa
0
-1
Figure 6-6: Dark soliton oscillation period as a function of interaction strength, normalized by the trapping period T. Data are shown for three different trapping
frequencies, 22 Hz (orange), 10 Hz (red), and 5 Hz (black). Dashed line: BEC limit
of V'2. Purple diamond: mean-field prediction at unitarity of vr. The 10 Hz (red)
points at 1/kFa =1.7,1.4,0.56, and 0 are averages over several measurements. The
vertical and horizontal error bars show 12.3% and 6.6% error, respectively, coming
from the standard deviation of five measurements at 760 G.
value of the trapping frequency varies slightly depending on the total magnetic field
used. For example, in the 10 Hz class, the trapping frequency is 10.22(2) Hz at 700
G and 10.87(1) Hz at 832 G. We measure the trapping frequencies precisely for each
magnetic field by exciting a center of mass oscillation, and normalize by the trapping
frequency measured at each field.
We see that the oscillation period greatly exceeds the predictions of mean-field
theory. At unitarity, for the 5 Hz trap, we observe T,/T = 12(2), a factor of 7 greater
than the predicted value of V.
The 10 Hz and 22 Hz traps give T/T = 14(2) and
18(2), respectively. The farthest point on the BEC side has 1/kFa
TS/T = 3.7(5), a factor of 2.6(4) higher than the BEC limit of
V2.
3.3(2) and
The closer
mutual agreement between values measured at trapping frequencies of 5 and 10 Hz
compared to values measured at 10 and 22 Hz suggest that the 5 Hz measurements
are close to the limit of a highly-elongated cloud.
Although our measurements disagree with mean-field theory quantitatively, one
thing is consistent: the soliton oscillation period increases going from the BEC limit
112
to unitarity. The physics behind this increases offers a clue as to what causes the
extremely large oscillation periods seen here. In mean-field theory, the increase in
the oscillation period is due to the soliton gaining mass as it "fills up" with localized
fermionic excitations (Andreev bound states) [6, 139].
However, mean-field theory
misses a second class of excitations, bosonic excitations of the order parameter due
to quantum fluctuations.
To approach this problem, one can first consider the case of a strongly-interacting
Bose gas. Indeed, even on the BEC-side of the Feshbach resonance (1/a > 0), we see
significant enhancement of the oscillation period relative to the mean-field prediction.
In a Bose gas, the dynamics of the order parameter couple to quantum fluctuations of
the field operator, 0 - (0). Fluctuation modes localized at the soliton are predicted
to occur [52, 47, 48].
Significant occupation of these modes may account for the
observed enhancement of the oscillation period. The equations coupling these modes
to the order parameter are similar to the coupled equations for bright-dark solitons in
BECs [20], where long oscillation periods have also been observed [11]. The quantum
fluctuations may therefore act like a second species of atoms, as in the dark-bright
soliton case, to fill up the soliton and slow it down.
113
114
Chapter 7
Conclusion
We have performed experiments studying several new phenomena in strongly-interacting
Fermi gases. Spin transport has been measured over a wide range of temperatures
and interaction strengths. The spin transport coefficients are seen to attain universal limiting values in degenerate gases at unitarity, with the spin diffusivity reaching
a minimum value of 6.3(3) h/m. These measurements have provided new tests of
theoretical descriptions of strongly-interacting Fermi gases. In a second set of measurements we studied the evolution of fermion pairing from three to two dimensions.
We observed the dependence of the pair binding energy on the confinement along one
direction. Deviations from the two-body binding energy provided a novel probe of
beyond-mean-field physics. We have also studied the lineshapes of the pair dissociation spectra, showing the anomalously strong sensitivity to short-range physics in 2D.
In a third set of measurements, we produced dark soliton excitations in a superfluid
Fermi gas. We measured the oscillation period of solitons in trapped gases and found
them to exceed theoretical predictions by an order of magnitude. This unexpected
behavior suggests that quantum fluctuations localized in the soliton plane strongly
modify the soliton mass. These observations should allow sensitive tests of theories
beyond the mean-field level.
115
116
Appendix A
Universal Spin Transport in a
Strongly Interacting Fermi Gas
This appendix contains a reprint of Ref. [145]: Ariel Sommer, Mark Ku, Giacomo
Roati, and Martin W. Zwierlein, Universal Spin Transport in a Strongly Interacting
Fermi Gas, Nature 472, 201-204 (2011).
117
LETTER
doi:10.1038/nature09989
Universal spin transport in a strongly interacting
Fermi gas
Ariel Sommer"' 3 , Mark Kul' 3, Giacomo Roati 4' 5 & Martin W. Zwierleini 2 ' 3
Transport of fermions, particles with half-integer spin, is central to
many fields of physics. Electron transport runs modern technology, defining states of matter such as superconductors and insulators, and electron spin is being explored as a new carrier of
information'. Neutrino transport energizes supernova explosions
following the collapse of a dying star2, and hydrodynamic transport of the quark-gluon plasma governed the expansion of the
early Universe'. However, our understanding of non-equilibrium
dynamics in such strongly interacting fermionic matter is still
limited. Ultracold gases of fermionic atoms realize a pristine model
for such systems and can be studied in real time with the precision
of atomic physics4 . Even above the superfluid transition, such gases
flow as an almost perfect fluid with very low viscosity when interactions are tuned to a scattering resonance-". In this hydrodynamic regime, collective density excitations are weakly damped'.
Here we experimentally investigate spin excitations in a Fermi gas of
6
Li atoms, finding that, in contrast, they are maximally damped. A
spin current is induced by spatially separating two spin components
and observing their evolution in an external trappingpotential. We
demonstrate that interactions can be strong enough to reverse spin
currents, with components of opposite spin reflecting off each
other. Near equilibrium, we obtain the spin drag coefficient, the
spin diffusivity and the spin susceptibility as a function of temperature on resonance and show that they obey universal laws at high
temperatures. In the degenerate regime, the spin diffusivity
approaches avalue set byf/m, the quantum limit of diffusion, where
i is Planck's constant divided by 2n and m the atomic mass. For
repulsive interactions, our measurements seem to exclude a metastable ferromagnetic state-".
Understanding the transport of spin, as opposed to the transport of
charge, is highly relevant to the novel field of spintronics'. Whereas
charge currents are unaffected by electron-electron scattering owing
to momentum conservation, spin currents are intrinsically damped
owing to collisions between electrons of opposite spin, as their relative
momentum is not conserved. This phenomenon is known as spin
drag"". It is expected to contribute significantly to the damping of
spin currents in doped semiconductors". The random collision events
also lead to spin diffusion-the tendency for spin currents to flow in
such a way as to even out spatial gradients in the spin density-which
has been studied in high-temperature superconductors" and in liquid
3
He- 4 He mixtures'"".
Creating spin currents poses a major challenge in electronic systems, where mobile spins are scattered by their environment and by
each other. However, in ultracold atomic gases, we have the freedom to
first prepare an essentially non-interacting spin mixture, separate
atoms spatially by using magnetic field gradients, and only then induce
strong interactions. Past observations of spin currents in ultracold
Fermi gases'"" were made in the weakly interacting regime. Here
we access the regime near a Feshbach resonance, where interactions
are as strong as allowed by quantum mechanics (the unitarity limit).
We measure spin transport properties, namely the spin drag coefficient Fd and the spin diffusivity D, of a strongly interacting Fermi
gas composed of an equal number of atoms in two different spin states.
In the strongly interacting regime, spin drag is expected to reach a
universal maximum value, and spin diffusion is expected to reach a
universal minimum.
The universal behaviour ofthe spin transport coefficients ofa Fermi
gas can be estimated on general grounds. At the Feshbach resonance,
the scattering cross-section a between atoms of opposite spin is given
by the square of the de Broglie wavelength. In the degenerate regime
(that is, below the Fermi temperature TF) a-I/k, where
kF =(6n2 n)" 3 is the Fermi wavevector and n is the density of atoms
in each spin state. The mean free path between collisions is thus
= 1/(n) -1/kF, or about one interpartide spacing, which is the
smallest possible mean free path in a gas. The average speed v of atoms
is of the order of the Fermi velocity, hk 1 m. In estimating the spin
diffusivity D,- vi, the density-dependent factors cancel, giving
D, - h1m. This value for D, represents a universal quantum limit to
spin diffusivity in Fermi gases. Away from resonance, the scattering
cross-section decreases, increasing D,. For temperatures T much
greater than TF, the scattering cross-section will be given by the square
of the thermal de Broglie wavelength, and thus decreases as a oc 1/T.
The velocity, in turn, will increase as v oc VI, causing D, to increase as
D, oc T3 / 2 . An analogous scaling argument applies to the viscosity'.
Finally, in a degenerate Fermi gas, the average velocity will remain of
the order of the Fermi velocity, but the effective scattering crosssection will scale as a oc T 2 owing to Pauli blocking, causing Ds to
increase as T 2 as the temperature is lowered. For a Fermi gas, we thus
expect the minimum D, to occur near TF, before Pauli blocking
becomes effective. Correspondingly, the coefficient d,characterizing
spin drag is expected to reach a universal maximum value, given by the
Fermi rate EF/h, where EF = h 2kF/2m is the Fermi energy.
In our experiment, we prepare an equal mixture of the two lowest
hyperfine states ('spin up' and 'spin down') of fermionic 6 Li in a
cylindrically symmetric atom trap'2"'2. The confinement along the
axis of symmetry is harmonic, with frequency co. We separate the
two spin components along the axis of symmetry of the trap (see
Methods Summary), and turn on strong interactions between unequal
spins by quickly increasing the magnetic field to a Feshbach resonance
located at 834 G. The confining potential of the trap forces the two
clouds of opposite-spin atoms to propagate towards each other, establishing a spin current Measurements are made by selectively imaging
the two spin components.
Figure 1 shows the collision between the two spin domains on
resonance. The clouds bounce off each other and essentially completely repel each other. Owing to the axial trapping potential, the clouds
return after the collision, and we observe several oscillations in the
displacement d = (z1 ) - (z4 ), where (zT(I)) is the centre of mass of the
spin-up (spin-down) cloud. After the oscillations have decayed, the
displacement decreases to zero monotonically, on a timescale of the
2
'Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA. MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge,
3
Massachusetts 02139, USA. Research Laboratoryof Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA. 4 1NO-CN R, University of Florence, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino,
Italy. 'LENS, University of Florence, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italy.
14 APRIL 2011
@2011
Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved
|
VOL 472 1 NATURE
I
201
REEACH
ET
a
FT d+o>2d=0
E
C,,
b
Time (1 ms per frame)
C
d
0.2-
Ic0.2-
E.1- 1
0.-
o
-0.11
-0.2
-0.3
.2
-0.2
.0
40
80
120 160 400
Time (ins)
8O
0.0 0.4
V/k" (
Figure II Observation of spin current reversal in a resonant collision
between two oppositely spin-polarized clouds of fermions. a, b, Total
column density (a) and the difference in column densities (b: red, spin up; blue,
spin down) during the first 20 ms after the collision. The central column
densities here are typically 7 X 16 cm- 2. Strong repulsion is observed that
leads to a high-density interface. c, The centre of mass separation initiall
y
oscillates at 1.63(2) times the axial trap frequency of 22.8 Hz (see
Supplementary Information) before decaying exponentially at later times The
initial atom number per spin state is 1.2 X 106, and the temperature 200 mns
after the collision and later is 0.5TF, with TF the Fermi temperature at the centre
of each cloud. d, The trapping potential Vis harmonic along the symmetry axis.
order of one second, which is an extremely long time compared t 3 the
trapping period (44 ms). The underlying explanation for spin cu Tent
reversal and the slow relaxation can be found in the extremely short
mean free path and the high collision rate between opposite- spin
atoms at unitarity. According to the above estimate, the spin diffusivity
is approximately h/1m, which for 6Li is (100 pm) 2 s 1.The atom cl ouds
in the experiment have a length of the order of 100 pm, and it takes
them of the order of a second to diffuse through each other. So w e are
indeed observing quantum-limited spin diffusion. The initial bou nces
will occur when the mean free path ofa spin-up atomin the spin-d own
cloud is smaller than the spin-down cloud size, that is, when the
mixture is hydrodynamic. Instead of quickly diffusing into the spindown region, it is then more likely that the spin-up atom is scatt ered
back into the spin-up region, where it can propagate ballistically.
After long evolution times, the oscillations shown in Fig. 1 have been
damped out, and the displacement between the centres of mass is
much smaller than the widths of the clouds. The relaxation dyna mics
can then be described by linear response theory, giving access tc the
spin transport coefficients. The spin drag coefficient re is defin .d as
the rate of momentum transfer between opposite-spin atoms.""., and
is therefore related to the collision rate. From the Boltzmann transport
equation, the relaxation of the displacement d near equilibrium fol lows
2
the differential equation
202
I
NATURE
I
VOL 472
I
in the case of strongly overdamped motion realized here. Fitting an
exponential with decay time r to the displacement gives the spin drag
coefficient ofthe trapped system as r', = wob. In the deeply degenerate
regime, the relationship between the measured and the microscopic
spin drag coefficient might be affected by a weak enhancement of the
effective mass and the attractive interaction energy between the
clouds'-".
The spin drag coefficientis found to be greatest on resonance, and thus
spin conduction is slowest on resonance (see Supplementary Information). On resonance, Iw in a homogeneous system must be given by a
function of the reduced temperature TITF times the Fermi rate EF/A. At
high temperatures, we expect the spin drag coefficient to obey a universal
scaling f' occnavoc -E (T/TF' 1/2 . In Fig. 2 we show the spin drag
coefficient as a function of T/TF; rd is normalized by E/h, where EF
and Tp are the local values at the centre of total mass. We observe T 1 /2
2
scaling for TITF >2, finding Fd=0.16(1)-E(T/TF
. At lower
temperatures, we observe a crossover from classical to non-classical
behaviour as the spin drag coefficient reaches a maximum of approximately 0.lEF/h near the Fermi temperature. We interpret this saturation
of the spin drag coefficient as a consequence of Fermi statistics and
unitarity, as a and v approach values determined by the Fermi wavevector kF. The spin drag coefficient is inversely proportional to the spin
conductivity, which describes the spin current response to an external
spin-dependent force. Near the Fermi temperature, the maximum spin
drag coefficient corresponds to a minimum spin conductivity of the
order of kF/h. This is the slowest spin conduction possible in three
dimensions in the absence of localization.
At low temperatures, the spin drag coefficient decreases with
decreasing temperature. Reduced spin drag at low temperatures is
expected in Fermi liquids owing to Pauli blocking 1 ',"- s,and is also
expected in one-dimensional Fermi gases'. In the case of collective
density (rather than spin) excitations, it was shown that pairing correlations enhance the effective collision rate dramatically as the temperature is lowered'. The effect of pairing on the spin drag coefficient
may be qualitatively different. In a simple picture, spin currents require
the flow of unpaired atoms, whereas collective density excitations
affect paired and unpaired atoms alike.
Comparing the relaxation rate to the gradient in spin density allows
us to also measure the spin diffusivity D,. At the centre of the trap, the
spin current density J, is given by the spin diffusion equation"7
0.12-
,
'+
0.10-
I T
+
1
0.08-1.0.06-
0.1
0.3
3
10
T/TF
Figure 2 Spin drag coefficient of a trapped Fermi gas with resonant
interactions. The spin drag coefficient rdis normalized by the Fermi rate EFh
at the trap centre, whereas the temperature is normalized by TF = EF/kB. We
find agreement between measurements taken at three different axial trapping
frequencies, 22.8 Hz (red circles), 37.5 Hz (blue triangles) and 11.2 Hz (black
squares). The data for T/TF > 2 fit to a T 1' 2 law (solid line). Dashed line, a
power law fit for TITF <0.5 to show the trend. Each point is a mean from
typically three determinations of r , each obtained from a time series of about
30 experimental runs and weighted according to the standard deviation from
fitting error and shot to shot fluctuations. Error bars, ± Is.e.
14 APRIL 2011
C2011 Macmillan Publishers Umlted. All rights reserved
LETTERC
a,ID,. Assuming the standard rela-
in the Einstein relation" Xs
tion"" a, = n/(nm,),
-- n1)
Is= -Ds a(nT
1 8(nT -nj)
mdO
Oz
where nT() is the density of spin-up (spin-down) atoms. We calculate
Is using the trap-averaged velocity as 1, = - (n1 + n 1)d, where the
densities are evaluated at the centre of total mass.
We find that the spin diffusivity is at a minimum when interactions
are resonant (see Supplementary Information). The increase in spin
diffusivity for positive scattering length a,as well as the decreasein spin
drag, argues against the existence of a ferromagnetic state in repulsive
Fermi gases, for which diffusion should stop entirely'-". Figure 3
reports the measured spin diffusivity as a function of temperature at
unitarity. In the high-temperature limit on resonance, one expects
D, oc v/na oc T312 . At high temperatures, we indeed find this temperature dependence, with a fit giving D,=5.8(2)A(T/TF) 3/ 2 for
T/TF > 2. In the degenerate regime, the spin diffusivity is seen to attain
a limiting value of 6.3(3)h/m.
When comparing these results to theoretical calculations, it is
important to account for the inhomogeneous density distributions
and velocity profiles. For a homogeneous system on resonance, and
at high temperatures compared to the Fermi temperature, we predict
3 2
D,=1. 1 (T/T) / and Fsd = 0.90k (T/TF) -1/2 (see Supplementary Information). The measured spin drag coefficient is smaller by a
factor of 0.90/0.16(1) = 5.6(4) while the spin diffusivity is larger by
about the same factor, 5.8(2)/1.11 = 5.3(2), compared to a homogeneous system at the density of the centre of total mass. These factors
reflect the inhomogeneity of the system and agree with an estimate
from the Boltzmann transport equation (see Supplementary Information). The emergence of a superfluid core at our lowest temperatures will further modify the ratio of trap-averaged to local transport
coefficients.
Finally, the measured transport coefficients give for the first time
access to the temperature dependence of the spin susceptibility, xS(T),
a (nt - nj)
in strongly interacting Fermi gases. Defined as x,= a(PT - ) , the
8(p; - p)
spin susceptibility describes the spin response to an infinitesimal effective magnetic field or chemical potential difference pT - p, applied to
the gas, and is a crucial quantity that can discriminate between different states of matterl. In a magnetic field gradient, particles with
opposite spin are forced apart at a rate determined by the spin conductivity a,, while diffusion acts to recombine them. The balance
between the processes of diffusion and conduction therefore determines the resulting magnetization gradient, a connection expressed
where
is evaluated near the trap centre. The inhomogeneous
trapping potential does not affect the measurement of x, in the hydrodynamic limit at high temperatures (see Supplementary Information).
Close to the transition to superfluidity, interaction effects may modify
the relation between a. and rd.
Figure 4 reports our findings for the spin susceptibility at unitarity, as
a function of the dimensionless temperature TITF. At high temperatures, we observe the Curie law X, = n/(kBT), where kB is Boltzmann's
constant. In this classical regime ofuncorrelated spins, the susceptibility
equals the (normalized) compressibility of the gas n2
a 3.02.5-
a
0
+
2.01.5-
0
0.
1.0-
~*
-0-p..
0.50.3
1
=
0.
~
-
-
3
10
T/TF
b
1.2-
-4+
3
.. -S
-
100-
10-
an/ap that
=and
I- 1
with Landau parameters F0 and
2EF 1+F
2nEF 1±F
F' describing the density (s) and spin (a) response". The spin susceptibility is expected to strongly decrease at sufficiently low temperatures in
the superfluid phase, as pairs will form that will not break in the presence of an infinitesimal magnetic field. It is currently debated whether
the strongly interacting Fermi gas above the superfluid transition temperature is a Fermi liquid" or a state with an excitation gap (pseudogap)". The opening of a gap in the excitation spectrum would be
revealed as a downturn of the spin susceptibility below a certain temperature. Such a downturn is not observed in X, down to T/TF - 0.2,
and therefore our spin susceptibility data agree down to this point with
the expected behaviour for a Fermi liquid.
In conclusion, we have studied spin transport in strongly interacting
Fermi gases. The spin diffusivity was found to attain a limiting value of
about 6.3h/m, establishing the quantum limit of diffusion for strongly
interacting Fermi gases. Away from resonance, the diffusivityincreases.
Z
30'
=
we also directly obtain from our profiles. At degenerate temperatures, the measured spin susceptibility becomes smaller than the normalized compressibility. This is expected for a Fermi liquid, where
0.8-
40.
--
--
-
-
-
-
--
0.4-
.
0.3
-
1
. . , , , ,,
3
0.3
10
T/TF
Figure 31 Spin diffusivity of a trapped Fermi gas. Shown is the spin
diffusivity on resonance (D,, normalized by h/m; filled circles) as a function of
the dimensionless temperature T/TF. At high temperatures, D, obeys the
universal T3 /2 behaviour (solid line). At low temperatures, D, approaches a
constant value of 6.3(3)h/m for temperatures below about 0.5TF, establishing
the quantum limit of spin diffusion for strongly interacting Fermi gases. Error
bars. ± 1s.e.
1
3
10
T/TF
Figure 41 Spin susceptibility on resonance. a, Spin susceptibility (X, open
red circles) and isothermal compressibility (K, filled blue circles), normalized by
the values for an ideal Fermi gas at zero temperature. For temperatures below
TF, x. becomes suppressed relative to K, owing to interactions between
opposite-spin atoms. Dashed line, X,of a non-interacting Fermi gas for
comparison. b, Red circles, x. divided by the value of n2 K obtained from the
same clouds. At temperatures above TF, the ratio ofx, to n2 K approaches unity
(dashed line). Error bars, ± Is.e.
14 APRIL 2011 1 VOL 472 1 NATURE
@2011 Macmillan Publishers ULmited. All rights reserved
203
ER
0EMEA1H
This casts doubt on the possibility of stabilizing a ferromagnetic gas on
the repulsive side of the Feshbach resonance, which would require a
vanishing diffusivity". The observed slow relaxation of spin excitations
is a likely explanation for the surprising-possibly non-equilibrium"profiles in spin-imbalanced Fermi gases reported in ref. 30, which did
2 02
not agree with equilibrium measurements by other workers ,",. Our
measurements of the temperature dependence ofthe spin susceptibility
are consistent with a Fermi liquid picture, and do not reveal a pseudogap. An interesting subject for further study is whether spins are still
able to diffuse through the superfluid, or whether they travel around it,
avoiding the superfluid owing to the pairing gap.
METHODS SUMMARY
The spin mixture is initially prepared at 300 G. To separate the spin components,
we reduce the magnetic field to 50 G, where the magnetic moments of the two spin
states are unequal, and apply two magnetic field gradient pulses. We then bring the
total magnetic field to the Feshbach resonance in about 2 ms.
To reach low temperatures during the approach to equilibrium, evaporative
cooling is applied, at 834 G, by gradually lowering the depth of the optical dipole
trap. To reach high temperatures, we heat the atoms by switching off the optical
dipole trap for up to 3 ms to allow the atom clouds to expand before recapturing
them. We then set the final depth of the dipole trap so that the atom number and
the temperature remain nearly constant during the approach to equilibrium
Spin selective imaging is performed by means of in situ absorption or phase
4
contrast imaging using two -ps imaging pulses separated by 6 ps. These images
give the column densities of each spin state, from which we obtain the threedimensional densities by way of an inverse Abel transform". The gradient in
the spin density is obtained from a linear fit to the polarization versus z.
We determine the temperature of the clouds by fitting the density versus potential energy in the vicinity ofz = 0 (but for all values ofthe radial coordinate r)to the
equation of state of the unitary Fermi gas, measured recently by our group". The
trapping potential itself is determined by summing the densities of hundreds of
clouds, using the known axial, harmonic trapping potential to convert equidensity
lines to equipotential lines and fitting the result to an analytic model.
Received 4 January; accepted 4 March 2011.
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27. Parish, M. M. & Huse, D. A. Evaporative depolarization and spin transport in a
unitary trapped Fermi gas. Phys. Rev. A 80,063605 (2009).
28. Gaebler, J. P. et al. Observation of pseudogap behavior in a strongly interacting
Fermi gas. Nature Phys 6, 569-573 (2010).
29. Perali, A. etal. Evolution of the normal state of a strongly interacting Fermi gas from
a pseudogap phase to a molecular Bose gas. Phys. Rev.Left 106,060402 (2011).
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separation in a polarized Fermi gas. Science 311, 503-505 (2006).
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204 1 NATURE
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gas on the verge of ferromagnetic instability. Phys Rev.Lett 104,220403 (2010).
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Supplementary Information is linked to the online version of the paper at
www.nature.com/nature.
Acknowledgements We thank G. Bruun, C. Pethick, D. Huse, R. Duine and W. Zwerger
for discussions, and A. Schirotzek for help with the early stages of the experiment This
work was supported by the NSF, AFOSR-MURI, ARO-MURI, ONR, DARPA YFA, a grant
from the Army Research Office with funding from the DARPA OLE programme, the
David and Lucille Packard Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Author Contributions All authors contributed to the experimental work. A.S. analysed
the data. M.K. developed the algorithm for thermometry. M.W.Z. performed theoretical
calculations. A.S. and M.W.Z wrote the manuscript.
Author Information Reprints and permissions information is available at
www.nature.com/reprints. The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Readers are welcome to comment on the online version of this article at
www.nature.com/nature. Correspondence and requests for materials should be
addressed to A.S. (atsommer@mitedu).
14 APRIL 2011
@2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved
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doi:10.1038/nature09989
Supplementary Discussion and Figures: Dependence on Interaction Strength
We study the dependence of the spin transport properties of the system on interaction strength by ramping to a variable
field in the vicinity of the Feshbach resonance and measuring the subsequent evolution of the system. Supplementary
Figure 1 shows the results of colliding two clouds at different fields, revealing the transition from transmission of
the clouds through each other to reflection of the clouds as the mean free path becomes smaller than the cloud size.
When the scattering length is set to zero (Sup. Fig. la), the center of mass separation oscillates at the trap frequency
w2. On resonance (Sup. Fig. Ig), the observed oscillation frequency is 1.63(2) w,, where the error estimate is one
standard deviation of fitting error from a fit to a phenomenological function. This frequency is intermediate between
the frequency 1.55wz of the axial breathing mode of a unitary Fermi gas in the hydrodynamic limiti and the noninteracting value of 2 w,, as the system contains a hydrodynamic region at the center, and is non-interacting in the
spin-polarized wings.
From Supplementary Figure l it is clear that the spin separation is most long-lived near resonance (Sup. Fig. Ifh). There it is possible to measure the spin transport coefficients quantitatively after waiting for the oscillations in the
center of mass separation to damp out. During that time, evaporative cooling is applied by reducing the depth of the
optical dipole trap before raising it to an intermediate value and beginning the measurement. Data series are taken
for cooling to two different trap depths. On resonance, the lower depth yields temperatures of 0.16(2) TF, and the
higher depth yields temperatures of 0.32(1) TF, where TF is the central Fermi temperature and the error estimates
are one standard deviation. The spin drag coefficient exhibits a maximum on resonance (Sup. Fig. 2a), while the
spin diffusivity is minimum on resonance (Sup. Fig. 2b). way from resonance, accurate thermometry becomes
more difficult as the equation of state is not known. However, estimates from the edges of the clouds suggest that the
temperature does not vary significantly for different fields at the higher trap depth, while at the lower trap depth the
temperature is about 0.25 TF at (kFa)-1 = -0.6 and 0.9. t each value of the interaction strength, the spin drag
coefficient is found to be larger for the higher trap depth, where the temperature is higher, while the spin diffusion
coefficient shows no significant temperature dependence.
a
e
500-K
600
400
200
0
0
-500
b
f
500400
600
.220
(U
C
g60-
600
400(sTes
Tm
400-~.~e~
200l~
CD
TI
1
1
%Wow
10
2
'----_
0
01
205
0
I
5
0
100
150
200
h 600
d 600
400
400
0
50
100
lime (ins)
150
200
0
50
Time (ins)
Supplementary igure 1 1 ollision between spin up and spin down clouds at varying interaction strength. After separating the spin components, the magnetic field was ramped to a variable value in the vicinity of the Feshbach resonance
to reach different interaction strengths. The interaction parameter kFa, with kF = (67r2 n)' 1 and n the central density
per spin component, was determined by averaging the values of kF obtained for t > 200 ms of evolution time (not
shown). The values of kFa are (a) 0, (b) 0.08, (c) 0.13, (d) 0.19, (e) 0.26, (f) 1.2, (g) oo, and (h) -1.5. For t > 200 ms
the temperature is about 0.5 TF, with TF the Fermi temperature at the center of each cloud. The initial atom number is
about 1 x 106. The solid lines show phenomenological fits.
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II
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION
b
a
30-
0.10 20-
0.08-
+
0.06 -
0.04 -
9-
0.02-
7.
I
I
I
I
I
I
-0.6
-0.4
-0.2
0.0
0.2
0.4
I
0.8
0.6
+
+
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
-0.6
-0.4
-0.2
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
(kra)
(kFal
0.8
1
Supplementary igure 2 1 Spin transport coefficients across the Feshbach resonance. The system was evaporatively
cooled to one of two different trap depths (blue triangles: lower trap depth, red circles: higher trap depth) before
beginning the measurement. Temperature estimates are given in the text. a, spin drag coefficient and b, spin diffusivity,
for varying interaction strength. The largest spin drag and smallest spin diffusivity occur at the Feshbach resonance,
where 1/kFa = 0. The solid lines in a show Lorentzian fits. Each data point shows the result from one time series.
Error bars show the standard deviation due to fitting error and shot to shot fluctuations within the time series.
Supplementary Methods
The experiment takes place in a trapping potential of the form
V(r, z) =
MA
Z2 + Vr(r),
where r = vG2 + y2. Here z is the symmetry axis of the trap, and we image along the y axis. The radial potential
Vr(r) is the sum of a gaussian potential due to the optical dipole trap plus a weak quadratic anti-trapping potential
from the magnetic field. The effective radial trapping frequency, defined using the aspect ratios of the atomic clouds,
varies from 80 Hz at the low optical trap depths used for the low temperature measurements to 250 Hz at the high
optical trap depths used for the high temperature measurements.
From each run of the experiment we obtain two-dimensional column densities n2d (x, z) of both spin states
a- =f, 4. Fitting a two-dimensional Gaussian to each column density provides a measurement of the center of mass
of each spin state. We subtract the z components of the centers of mass of the two spin states to obtain the separation
parameter d = (zt) - (zj). The three-dimensional densities nr(r,z) are obtained using a numerical implementation
of the inverse bel transformation 2:
n-,
n, (ri, z) = E
n2d (xj+ 1, z) - n2d
aa
2d
~
i
In [J±1
-
(j±1)2
j
_
j2
1'fi
j~xi
For each line of constant z, the values of n,(ri, z) with small i are sensitive to noise in n2d(x3 , z) for small j. To
reduce noise, we fit a one-dimensional Gaussian to n2d (xj, z), for each value of z and for j < 3 (corresponding to
jxj < 7 pm), and use this fit (with sub-resolution sampling to reduce discretization error) in the above formula.
The temperature is determined by analyzing the densities n, (r,z) for IzI < 60 prm (as the 1/e radii of the
clouds range from 100 to 400 pm, this restriction excludes the more polarized, large z, regions of the clouds). We
obtain the temperature of each cloud by fitting the density versus potential energy V to
n
w -e
V= 27
= A-
(
-f
,B),
T is the temperature, p is the global chemical potential, and
f is a universal function
3
defining the equation of state of the unitary Fermi gas , with p and T as the fit parameters. The equation of state
function f was obtained by extending the third-order Virial expansion to low temperatures using measured density
distributions in a known trapping potential3 .
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Supplementary Equations: Measurement of Transport oefficients
Near equilibrium, d decays exponentially, and we fit the measured values to
d(t) = doe-'/T.
The spin drag coefficient is then
Psd
= WzE*
To non-dimensionalize this quantity we multiply by h and divide by the Fermi energy EF = 2(67r2 n(d))2/3, where
n(d) = (nt () + nj (6))/2 is the average three-dimensional density at (r,z) = (0, 0).
fter fitting to d(t) to obtain r, we obtain the spin diffusivity from each spin up-spin down image pair as
Ds = n(d)d
g-
where g = a
1z=O,r=O is the spin density gradient. The spin density gradient is obtained from the slope b of a
linear fit to the polarization p(z) =
as a function of z at r = 0 using the formula
g = b - (nt (6) + ng (d)).
The Einstein relation provides the spin susceptibility as
n(6)
m D, Fd
9
m dwy
lthough derived using transport coefficients, the final expression for Xs does not actually depend on the relaxation
time 7-, so it gives an independent value of Xs from each run of the experiment.
th
omprssiiliy
otai
We isoheral
We obtain the isothermal compressibility
the local density approximation as
K
n
=
1 On
1
at the center of mass for near-equilibrium clouds within
&2n
mn 2W2 4Z 2 )
where the second derivative 0 2 n/0z 2 of the density is determined from a Gaussian fit to n(r = 0, z) from z = 0 to
the half maximum.
Supplementary Equations: Relation to Homogeneous Values
The measured spin drag coefficient and spin diffusivity are related to the values for a homogeneous system through
averages over the trapped cloud. Define the trap average of a function G(r-) of position r as
(G)
=
fd3r G()n(r),
where N = NT = N and n = }(nt + n;).
Near equilibrium, where n -_ n-t ~ n, the center of mass separation d(t) evolves according to
J+
zwd
= -(IsdUz,re1)
= --
Edd,
where Uz,rel is the z component of the local relative velocity between spin up and spin down atoms and Fsd (r-') is the
local spin drag coefficient.
S d = (Uz,rei),
rsd = (rsdUz,rel)
(Uz,rei)
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aSUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION
This relation neglects the modification of the transport equations due to quasiparticle effective mass and interaction
energy corrections. Under the same conditions, the measured spin diffusivity Ds is related to the local spin diffusivity
Ds at the trap center by
(0)(Uz,rei)
Ds=
Uz,rei(0)
The the local spin susceptibility
is at the trap
center is given by
'W(O) = Ms(0/Ns() =
SmIsd (0)
fn(O)Uz,rei
()
with the local spin conductivity &,.Note that the density n cancels in the above expression, so it remains true even
when n is replaced by an effective density of mobile atoms in the presence of pairing. The measured spin susceptibility
Xs is therefore related to the local value by
Xs =
A sd (O)Uz,rel (0)
w2d
For small spin correlations, i.e. s - f 2 K
0, we expect Xs
js(0). Consider a volume element of spin up
atoms with z coordinate Z. The motion of the volume element satisfies the Euler equation,
Z
=
=
VU"_
± (Etr- -luUt
nz,~t =,tU"T+
=
W2
-w2Z
-
1-
fsd Uz,rel
_9__
mnt7
-
2mn
where u,, is the z component of the local average velocity ii, of atoms with spin o,, and P, is the partial pressure of
atoms with spin o.
similar equation holds for the spin down cloud. Subtracting them gives
1 (azPT
rsdUz,rel =
(
m
n4
az P4
nt
where the Z terms have been omitted because they are negligible in the case of overdamped motion applicable to our
experiment. We now assume that, close to equilibrium, the density distribution of the spin up (down) atoms is equal
to the equilibrium density distribution but shifted in the positive (negative) z direction by d/2. This is reasonable for
Xs -ner 0. Using the Gibbs-Duhem relation dP, = n dy, one then finds fsd (0)Uz,rel(0) = Wzd, i.e. Xs =
Supplementary Equations: Theoretical
alculation of Transport oefficients
Neglecting effective mass corrections and the interaction energy between the spins, the coefficients for spin transport
may be calculated using the Boltzmann transport equation, describing the evolution of the semi-classical distribution
functions f,(F, V, t), with a =t, 4:
___
+-
F
V,f' + -
-VV f, = Ioil[ft, f
with F an external force, and Itcoll (Ilco1) the collision integral for spin up (down) atoms,
Itcn[ft,f,]
=
-
do
ISt
-
I [(1
-
ft)(l
-
fff- tf
-
ft(1
-
)(
-
f)]
The integral describes the scattering of particles t and . into new states t' and 4'. Q is the solid angle between the
incoming and outgoing relative momenta (f -34) and (p-, - 11.), and A is the differential scattering cross section for
scattering between up and down spins. We will first derive the diffusion coefficient and the spin drag coefficient for the
homogeneous case, in the absence of an external trapping potential, using a standard variational approach 4 . ssume
density gradients n' along z for spin up and spin down, causing a spin density gradient g = 0 (nt -n )/,Oz = n' -ni.
1
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I'
This causes a change in the distribution functions afl/Oz = n'f,/n. Linearizing the Boltzmann equation, writing
f, = f 0 + f0 (1 - f 0)?Pa, with f 0 the equilibrium distribution, we have for spin up
a
X
gS =
n
- I conl4
f (1 - f0 )
Itcon [1]
0
where the linearized collisional integral for spin up particles is
d2r
Jd&
ITC001 = ~ (
W)t -
(f + 01 ~ Of' - 04') ft 4(l - ft')(l - fT').
The induced spin current is
(2 7rh) 3 Z(ft
SJ=
(27rh)3
where a scalar product has been defined, and
Js = (vZ,4')
and thus Ds
=
g
(4, HV)'.
f(
1
f)
(
)
4 = or - 40.The Boltzmann equation now gives
-
=
9
-
9
( ,H))= -Dg
I'con [01)/f'(1 - f 0 ). The expression for D, allows for
Here, Ho = (Itcou [4' -
a variational calculation, noting that (4', H4')
(U, H4) 2 / (U, HU) = (U, X) 2 / (U, HU) for trial functions U.
In the classical regime at non-degenerate temperatures, the 1/r 5 force law allows an exact solution to Boltzmann's
equation with 4 = X. For other force laws 1/rn with n > 5 and the hard sphere, the choice U = X yields transport
coefficients accurate to within a few percent 4 . We thus have in the non-degenerate regime (X, X) = g 2 kBT/nm and
Ds
k
with the variational result for the spin drag coefficient
sd
(X, H,X)
)
-
m
nkBT
f
d3 p
(27rh)3
f (2irh)
d3 p
3
fdo,
Qd
vt
-I (Utz
-
v4z) (Vtz
-
-
v
+
U4z fOfi
The collision integral can be calculated (for details, see for example 4 ) and yields
(kBT
16
3
1/2
7rm
with
du
a(T/T) = 47ra
u e
and Ta =
2 is the temperature scale associated with the scattering length a. The limiting values of the
temperature-dependent average scattering cross section o(T/Ta) are
o(T < Ta) = 47ra2
and
C(T
> T.) =
2wrh 2
= A2
mkBT
with the thermal de Broglie-wavelength A. For unitary interactions, Ta = 0, and the latter limit applies. With the
2
Fermi energy EF = 2(67r2n)2/3, we find in the unitary limit where o = A
EF
= 5;232
EF ~32
EF
" = 0.90
BT
kBT
.
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'MV
The spin diffusivity then obeys the variational bound
kBT
D(, >/-
_
32V2 m
m F,
/
013/2 h
7
-
h
m
TF
3
(T )3/2
TF
or directly from the definition X,
The spin susceptibility follows either from X, = o,/D, = mnD =
2
6
(ptt+p
s)/
and the difference Jp = ts
=.
en+.P/ with the average chemical potential ! =
_____)
one obtains X,
=
lim(Jtp
_+ 0)
"ans
-
=
n
We now turn to the trapped case with inhomogeneous densities. Define the joint distribution function f (rt, F, it, i.)
5
tjt)f4( 4,i). ny quantity of the form X(ft, i, it, i4) can be averaged over f
fr(1 ~~
=
)= N-1 Nfd3rtdr d3vtd3V.t(Xf)
where N,, is the number of atoms with spin o.We generalize to arbitrary scattering length a, and non-uniform drift
velocity, the calculation by Vichi and Stringari 6 of the equation of motion for the relative coordinates of the two spin
components in a harmonic trap of angular frequency w_ along the z axis. From the Boltzmann equation,
,tj (zt - Z4.) = (Vzt and
9
t (Vzt
--
v_-)
V) = - (Vzt - Vz ) Fsd - Wz (zt
- z )
where the spin drag coefficient is
Fsd
((Vzt - vz )Ioiifl)
(Vzt - VZI)
with
((Vzt - vz.)Icon[f]) =
-
d3r
(dr3
J
dQ
(2t3
IVT
-
I7I (vZt - vzz) x
[(1 - ff)(i - f4)f f: - ftfh(1 - fti)(1 - f)7
-Voadrift) and i ,drift
We assume that the distribution functions near equilibrium are fa (f,V) = fo
= -Vd (r
is the drift velocity of spin o,. This again corresponds to the choice 0 = X in the homogeneous calculation, just now
for every position Fin the trap. The momentum part of the collision integral can be calculated as before, and we obtain
rsd =sd (0)/a with
a = no(0)
f noVd
f
d
3
r
,
noVd dar'
no = f f'd3 V is the equilibrium density of each spin state. For a uniform system a = 1, while for a harmonically
trapped system with a uniform drift velocity we find a = 23/2 = 2.8. However, the drift velocity profile cannot be
uniform: even if it started out uniform, spin currents would get damped faster in the center of the overlap region of
the two clouds, where the collision rate is high, than in the wings, where it is low. non-uniform drift velocity profile
2
2
2
will develop. For example, a quadratic drift velocity profile Vd(r) = ax + 4 + cz will result in a = 25/2 ~~5.7.
Close to the trap center, by symmetry the drift velocity will behave like a constant plus a quadratic function of position.
full theoretical calculation of the spin current density and
The actual value of a may thus lie between 2.8 and 5.7.
the drift velocity profile is beyond the scope of this supplementary material. The spin diffusivity measured in our
experiment for T >> TF is
Ds = Da = 1.1a
m
(T )
3
/2 .
TF
The bulk value for a = 1 represents a lower bound on the diffusivity. The effect of inhomogeneities in a harmonic,
cylindrically symmetric trap can increase the diffusivity by a :: 5.7. The high-temperature result for the diffusivity
has been obtained independently by Georg Bruun 7.
6 1 WWW.NATURE.COMINATURE
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION
1. Inguscio, M., Ketterle, W. & Salomon, C. (eds.) Ultracold Fermi Gases. Proceedings of the International School
of Physics "Enrico Fermi", Course CLXIV, Varenna, 20 - 30 June 2006 ( msterdam: IOS, 2008).
2. Bockasten, K. Transformation of observed radiances into radial distribution of the emission of a plasma. J. Opt.
Soc. m. 51, 943-947 (1961).
3. Ku, M. et al.
Equation of state of a strongly interacting atomic Fermi gas. Conference abstract at
(http://meetings.aps.org/link/B PS.2010.D MOP.W6.1) (2010).
4. Smith, H. & Jensen, H. H. TransportPhenomena (New York: Oxford, 1989).
5. Gudry-Odelin, D., Zambelli, F., Dalibard, J. & Stringari, S. Collective oscillations of a classical gas confined in
harmonic traps. Phys. Rev. 60, 4851 (1999).
6. Vichi, L. & Stringari, S. Collective oscillations of an interacting trapped Fermi gas. Phys. Rev.
60, 4734 (1999).
7. Bruun, G. M. Spin diffusion in Fermi gases. Preprint at (http://arxiv.org/abs/1012.1607) (2010).
WWW.NATURE.COM/NATURE
1 7
Appendix B
Spin Transport in Polaronic and
Superfluid Fermi Gases
This appendix contains a reprint of Ref. [146]: Ariel Sommer, Mark Ku, and Martin
W. Zwierlein, Spin Transport in Polaronic and Superfluid Fermi Gases, New J. Phys.
13, 055009 (2011).
129
Spin transport in polaronic and superfluid
Fermi gases
Ariel Sommer, Mark Ku and Martin W Zwierlein
Department of Physics, MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms, MIT,
Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
and
Research Laboratory of Electronics, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
E-mail: atsommer@mit.edu
New Joumal of Physics 13 (2011) 055009 (14pp)
Received 10 February 2011
Published 24 May 2011
Online at http://www.njp.org/
doi:10.1088/1367-2630/13/5/055009
Abstract. We present measurements of spin transport in ultracold gases of
fermionic 6Li in a mixture of two spin states at a Feshbach resonance. In
particular, we study the spin-dipole mode, where the two spin components
are displaced from each other against a harmonic restoring force. We prepare
a highly imbalanced, or polaronic, spin mixture with a spin-dipole excitation
and we observe strong, unitarity-limited damping of the spin-dipole mode. In
gases with small spin imbalance, below the Pauli limit for superfluidity, we
observe strongly damped spin flow even in the presence of a superfluid core.
This indicates strong mutual friction between superfluid and polarized normal
spins, possibly involving Andreev reflection at the superfluid-normal interface.
Contents
1. Introduction
2. Highly imbalanced Fermi gases
3. A superfluid with small spin polarization
4. Conclusions
Acknowledgments
References
2
3
9
11
12
12
1Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed.
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1367-2630/11/055009+14$33.00
@lOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft
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1. Introduction
The quality of transport is one of the most important properties distinguishing states of
matter. Of great technical importance, electrons in condensed matter materials can flow
as currents or supercurrents, or be localized in an insulator, or even switch their state of
conductivity through controllable parameters like an applied magnetic field. It is the task
of many-body physics to develop models that may explain the observed transport properties
in a system. Dilute atomic gases cooled to quantum degeneracy provide ideal systems for
testing many-body theories. In particular, Feshbach resonances [1] in atomic Fermi gases
allow experimental control over the strength of two-body interactions, giving access to the
Bose-Einstein condensation to Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer superfluid (BEC-BCS) crossover
regime [2, 3]. Transport properties have played an important role in characterizing strongly
interacting Fermi gases in the BEC-BCS crossover, with the observation of hydrodynamic flow
indicating nearly perfect fluidity [4, 5], the measurement of collective excitation frequencies
probing the equation of state [6-8], and the observation of vortex lattices in rotating gases
demonstrating superfluidity [9]. The first observations of spin transport in Fermi gases were
obtained in the weakly interacting regime, and showed the onset of Pauli blocking of
collisions [10], and the transition from collisionless to hydrodynamic behavior [11]. Spin
excitations have also been observed in Fermi gases as long-lived spin waves near zero scattering
length [12].
Here we study spin transport in strongly interacting two-component Fermi gases. Spin
currents are strongly damped in such systems due to the high collision rate between opposite
spin atoms: as two-body scattering does not conserve relative momentum, each scattering
event on average reduces the net spin current [13]. At the Feshbach resonance, scattering is
maximal, with a mean-free path between collisions of opposite spins that can be as short as one
interparticle spacing-the smallest possible in a three-dimensional (3D) gas. Measurements
of spin transport in strongly interacting Fermi gases with an equal number of atoms in two
spin states were recently reported [14]. Interactions were shown to be strong enough to reverse
spin currents, with two clouds of opposite spin almost perfectly repelling each other. The spin
diffusivity was found to reach a lower limit of the order of h/m at unitarity, the quantum limit
of diffusion. Here, we consider the case where the number of atoms in the two states is unequal,
and study spin transport in the polaron and phase-separated superfluid regimes. In highly
polarized systems that remain non-superfluid down to zero temperature [15-17], spin currents
are expected to become undamped due to Pauli blocking [18-20]. In this imbalanced regime,
a high-frequency mode observed after a compressional excitation was interpreted as a weakly
damped spin quadrupole (or breathing) mode [21]. The question of the damping properties of
the spin excitation and its temperature dependence was left open. Spin transport properties of
ultracold Fermi gases have been investigated theoretically most recently in [18-20], [22-24],
allowing comparison between theory and experiment.
In section 2, we present measurements of the damping rate of spin excitations in highly
polarized Fermi gases as a function of temperature. We show that damping is maximal at
finite temperatures. In section 3, we study smaller spin polarizations, below the Pauli limit
of superfluidity [15], just enough to reveal the presence of a superfluid core in the system.
We show that the spin-dipole mode is strongly damped in the presence of the superfluid. In a
partially polarized Fermi gas, damping of spin motion is expected to persist at low temperatures
due to Andreev reflection [20].
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2. Highly imbalanced Fermi gases
Fermi gases with resonant interactions can remain normal down to zero temperature if the spin
imbalance exceeds the Pauli (or the Clogston-Chandrasekhar) limit [15, 16, 21, 25, 26, 39].
We refer to the spin state with the larger population of atoms as the majority, or spin-up
state, and the state with fewer atoms as the minority, or spin-down state. Radio-frequency (RF)
spectroscopy [17] on such systems confirms the quasi-particle picture [27-29] where minority
atoms are dressed by the majority Fermi sea, forming a quasi-particle known as the Fermi
polaron. The energy of a single polaron in a zero-temperature Fermi sea of spin-up atoms has
been described using the effective Hamiltonian [18, 19, 30],
H = -alt
+
p2
(1)
,
where p is the momentum of the polaron, m* is the polaron effective mass, yt is the local
spin-up chemical potential and a characterizes the polaron binding energy. The parameters a
and m*/m, where m is the bare mass of spin-up and spin-down fermions, have been measured
experimentally [17, 21, 31, 32] and calculated theoretically [30], [33-35], giving a = 0.62 and
m*/m ~ 1.2 at zero temperature.
We consider a mixture of Nt spin-up fermions and N spin-down fermions at temperature
T with equal masses and resonant interactions, held in a spin-independent potential of the
form
V (p, z) = 1m 2z2 + V (p),
(2)
2
where p 2
2+ y . The spin-up (down) clouds have density nT(,o)(r) at position r. The minority
cloud is initially displaced by a small amount Z (0) along the z-axis and is allowed to relax to
its equilibrium position.
In the limit N < Nt, the motion of the spin-up cloud due to momentum absorbed from
the spin-down cloud may be neglected. The equation of motion of the spin-down center of mass
Z is then [18]
*
.~~ 2~m*.
m*2, +(1+a)moZ+
Nf
(r) v(r) =0,
d r+n-(r)
rp(r)
(3)
where the factor of (1 +a) is due to the attraction of the minority fermions to the majority
cloud, 1/rp is the local momentum relaxation rate due to collisions [18] and is equivalent
to the spin drag coefficient [13, 22], and v4 is the local drift velocity of spin-down atoms.
By dimensional analysis, h/rp(r) must be given by the local majority Fermi energy times a
universal dimensionless function of the local reduced temperature T/ Tipl(r) and the local ratio
T 'd(r)/ T al(r) of the Fermi temperatures, where T1a(r) is the local majority (minority)
Fermi temperature. The first two terms in (3) follow from (1), (2) and the local density
approximation, while the third term is due to damping and is not captured in (1). Equation (3)
neglects a possible back-action of the minority on the majority atoms that might deform the
majority density profile.
In our experimental realization of this transport problem, we use a gas of ultracold
fermionic 6Li atoms. The 6Li atoms are cooled sympathetically with 2 3 Na [36] and loaded into a
hybrid optical and magnetic trap with an adjustable bias magnetic field [37]. The magnetic field
curvature provides essentially perfect harmonic confinement along the axial (z) direction, while
the optical dipole trap (laser wavelength 1064 nm, waist 115 rIm) provides trapping in the radial
New Joumal of Physics 13 (2011) 055009 (http://www.njp.org/)
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directions, with negligible contribution to the axial confinement. With this system, we perform
a collection of time series measurements. In each time series, we prepare the system in a chosen
initial state and observe its evolution.
At the Feshbach resonance at 834 G, the magnetic moments of 'spin-up' and 'spin-down'
atoms, the two lowest hyperfine states of 6Li, are equal to 1 part in 1000, since their electron
spin is in fact aligned with the magnetic field. Inducing a spin current is therefore extremely
challenging on resonance. However, at lower fields, their magnetic moments differ, allowing
separation of the two gas clouds by a magnetic field gradient. Our experimental procedure for
producing these separated clouds is as follows.
We prepare the system starting with about 1 x 10' atoms of 6Li in the lowest hyperfine
state, at a total magnetic field of 300 G. A small fraction of atoms are transferred to the secondlowest hyperfine state using a RF Landau-Zener sweep. The mixture is then evaporatively
cooled for a variable amount of time by lowering the depth of the optical dipole trap from
kB x 7 ItK to a variable final depth between kB x 0.5 pK and kB x 1 AK, where kB is the
Boltzmann constant. The optical dipole trap depth is then raised to kB x 6 /iK, where the
zero-temperature Fermi energy in the majority state is between kB x 0.8 JtK and kB x 1.3 tLK.
After the spin mixture is prepared at 300 G, the total magnetic field is reduced gradually
over 500 ms to 50 G, where the ratio of the magnetic moments of the two states is 2.5 and
interactions are very weak. A magnetic field gradient is applied along the z-direction for about
4 ms, imparting a linear momentum of the same sign but a different magnitude to each spin
state. The clouds are then allowed to evolve for about 30 ms, and they execute about half of an
oscillation period at different amplitudes and frequencies (the frequency ratio is 1.6 between
spin-up and spin-down). When the clouds have returned to the center of the trap, their centers
of mass are displaced from each other by about 200 yIm (for comparison, the Ile radius of the
majority cloud in the z-direction is between 200 and 300 ttm at this point). A second gradient
pulse is applied along the same direction to remove the relative velocity of the two clouds. The
second pulse also removes most of the total center-of-mass motion. The total magnetic field is
then ramped to the Feshbach resonance at 834 G in about 5 ms. At resonance, the two spin states
have identical trapping frequencies of 22.8 Hz.2
To reach low temperatures, we apply a variable amount of evaporative cooling by lowering
the depth of the optical dipole trap after reaching 834 G. The time available for evaporative
cooling is limited to about 0.4 s by the relaxation time of the spin excitation. To reach high
temperatures, we prepare a hotter cloud at 300 G and heat the system further at 834 G by
releasing the atoms from the optical dipole trap and recapturing them. The depth of the optical
dipole trap is then ramped gradually to a final value in 80 ms. The final depth is chosen to
keep the number of atoms and the temperature approximately constant during the subsequent
evolution, and it corresponds to an effective radial trap frequency ranging from 80 Hz for the
low-temperature data to 250 Hz for the high-temperature data. After preparing the system at
the chosen temperature and with a nonzero spin-dipole moment, we are left with typically
Nt e 4 x 10 5 atoms in the majority state and N ~ 4 x 10 4 atoms in the minority state. We
then allow the system to evolve for a variable wait time t before measuring the densities of
the spin-up and spin-down clouds using resonant absorption imaging. Note that we limit the
2 The system as a whole oscillates harmonically along the z-direction at 22.8 Hz due to the residual center-of-mass
energy. This motion does not affect the dynamics in the total center-of-mass frame because the trapping potential is
harmonic in the z-direction, and therefore, according to Kohn's theorem, the dynamics in the total center-of-mass
frame are equivalent to the dynamics of a system at rest [38].
New Joumal of Physics 13 (2011) 055009 (http://www.njp.org/)
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(d)
.
30
320
E20
2-
10-
*1-0
0
0
00~6b~
0.2
0.4
Veff/kB (pK)
0.6
0
200
400
600
t (ins)
Figure 1. Measuring the spin-dipole mode of a highly polarized Fermi gas.
(a) and (b) show 2D column density images of the minority and majority spin
state, respectively, obtained using resonant absorption imaging in one run of the
experiment. The imaging pulses are each 4 is in duration and separated by 6 ys.
The distance between the centers of mass in (a) and (b) is 34 Itm. (c) Density
of the majority (solid red circles) and minority (open blue circles) versus the
effective potential energy Veff defined in the text, obtained from the images in
(a) and (b). The temperature of the cloud is found by fitting the non-interacting
Fermi gas equation of state (solid line) to the region of the majority density where
the minority fraction is 5% or less. (d) Displacement d of the minority center of
mass relative to the majority center of mass as a function of time t. This time
series includes the run displayed in (a-c). Error bars are from fitting uncertainty
(one std. dev.). The curve shows an exponential fit.
population of the majority cloud to ensure that the central optical density is less than 2, allowing
for accurate density measurements.
Figures 1(a) and (b) show typical 2D column densities of the two spin states after evaporative cooling on resonance. From the column densities, we reconstruct the 3D densities n, (p, z)
of each state or = t, 4 using the inverse Abel transformation. The temperature of the system is
determined by fitting the majority density as a function of potential energy to the equation of
), where
state of a non-interacting Fermi gas [37] (figure 1(c)): nt,FG = _X-3 3/2(-e
2
are
fit
parameters
the
P
=
1/kBT,
wavelength,
Broglie
de
is
the
thermal
X = 2rh /mkBT
3/2,
and
order
of
the
polylogarithm
6/2
is
the chemical potential 1L and the temperature T,
Vef = V (p, z - Zt) is the effective potential energy. The fit is restricted to z < Zt and to the
outer edges of the majority cloud, where n,/nt < xr. We used a cut-off minority fraction of
xe = 0.05 for all clouds with T < 0.5TFt. For some of the data with 0.5 < T/ TFt < 1, xr was
2
increased to 0.08 to increase the available signal, while for the data with T > TFt, x" was
increased to 0.15 for the same reason. These increases in xe should not affect the accuracy of the
thermometry because the system interacts less strongly at high T/ TFt [3]. This is demonstrated
by our spin susceptibility measurements for the balanced case in [14] that agree with the
compressibility above TI TF z 1, showing the absence of spin correlations in this temperature
regime. For normalization, the central densities n, (0) of each species are recorded and used
2
to define the central Fermi energies EF, = h2 k /2m,, with kF, = (67r n, (0))1/3, m =m, and
m = m*, and Fermi temperatures TF, = EFIkBNew Joumal of Physics 13 (2011) 055009 (http://www.njp.org/)
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Spin transport is measured by observing the time evolution of the center-of-mass separation
d(t) = Z (t) - Zt(t) (figure 1(d)), with Zt()(t) the center of mass of the majority (minority)
cloud along the z-axis at time t, determined from a 2D Gaussian fit to the column density. We
find that d relaxes exponentially to zero, corresponding to an overdamped spin-dipole mode,
and fit the evolution to an exponential function d(t) = doe-t/. We report the dimensionless
relaxation time i = ho2r/EFt. Equation (3) implies that i is mostly independent of the
absolute scales set by the density and the trapping frequency. Defining the average momentum
relaxation rate as
1
fd 3 r n4 (r)v(r)/rp(r)
TP
f d3r n (r)v (r)
(4)
and making the approximation that Tp is constant in time relates i to fundamental properties of
the system as
~m*/m
i~ M
(1+a)
in the limit (OZr)
l/ip
I(5) ,
h/EFt'
2
>> 1 realized in our measurements, where r is always at least 100 ms, and so
(Wzr) > 200.
Figure 2 shows the measured values of the dimensionless relaxation time i as a function of
the reduced temperature T/ TFt. i increases at low temperatures before reaching a maximum
of 0. 13( 3 )EFt for T/ TFf = 0.40(6), and decreases at higher temperatures. We interpret the
behavior of the relaxation time at low temperatures as a consequence of Pauli blocking: as
the temperature is lowered significantly below the majority Fermi temperature, the phase space
available for a minority atom to scatter goes to zero. The reduction in i at high temperatures
is expected: at high temperatures, 1/Tp is essentially given by the collision rate in the gas [40],
1/rp - no-y. The scattering cross-section a on resonance for T >> TFt is given by the square
of the de Broglie wavelength and is thus proportional to 1/ T, while the average speed v of the
particles is proportional to N/T. Hence, i is expected to decrease like hno-v/EFt oc /TFtI/T.
We observed behavior similar to figure 2 in 3D Fermi gases with resonant interactions and equal
spin populations in [14], although we see more significant Pauli blocking here than in [14] at
comparable temperatures.
The systematic uncertainties of the measured values have been estimated, and are
comparable to or less than the statistical errors. The temperature measurement uses knowledge
of the potential energy (2). The radial potential energy function Vp(p) is assumed to have the
form
2a P
1
22
(6)
2
0) - _
2(= -e2
VP(p) - 7 21
2
where a is a known constant expressing the polarizability of the atoms, P is the optical power
of the dipole trap and wo is the waist of the trapping beam, and wz = 27r x 22.8 Hz is the axial
trapping frequency. Direct measurements give P and wo with 5-10% accuracy. To refine the
trap model, we sum the 3D densities of the majority atom clouds for each value of P used in the
experiment, taking only t > 190 ms, and use the known axial potential together with the local
density approximation to obtain Vp(p). The model (6) is then fit to the experimentally measured
V, (p) with wo as a free parameter, giving wo = 115 Am. Equivalently, P could have been used
as the free parameter; the difference in the two approaches adds less than 1% uncertainty to the
potential energy. The uncertainty in the potential energy is dominated by noise in the images of
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0.16-
ID-
0.14-
OB-
0.12
-0
02
0.10-
0.08-
0/F1
2 3
++
+
0.060.04 -+
0.1
TrTFt
1
Figure 2. Normalized relaxation time of the spin-dipole mode of a highly
polarized Fermi gas as a function of the reduced temperature TI TFf. TFf is the
local Fermi temperature at the center of the majority cloud. The solid curve is
the low-temperature limit from [18], given by equation (7). The dashed curve
is the expression 0.08
. The inset shows the average ratio of the minority
cloud size to the majority cloud size as a function of the reduced temperature
T/ TFt. The cloud sizes are defined as the l/e radii along the z-axis, estimated
by fitting a 2D Gaussian function to the column densities of the two spin states.
In both figures, each point is a weighted average of the results from 1 to 3 time
series, with each time series containing on average 30 spin-up-spin-down image
pairs. The error bars give standard deviations due to statistical fluctuations within
a time series. Where the results of more than one time series are averaged, the
error bars show the standard deviation of the weighted mean, determined from
the standard deviations from each time series.
the clouds, giving an uncertainty in wo of about 2 ttm. This implies a 7% systematic error on
the potential energy at p = 40 lim (a typical value of p in the outer region of the cloud). The
resulting systematic uncertainty on the temperature is 10% at the lowest temperatures, and 5%
for temperatures near TF or higher. Measurements of density are affected by the laser linewidth,
imperfect polarization of the imaging light, and nonlinearities from saturation of the imaging
transition, Doppler shifting of atoms scattered by the imaging light and pumping into transparent
final states. The density measurement is calibrated using equilibrium low-temperature clouds
with large spin imbalance. The systematic uncertainty in the density is 10%. This leads to a
total systematic error in the reduced temperatures of 8-12%, and a systematic error in i of
6%. The magnification of the imaging system is calibrated to 0.5% and does not contribute
significantly to the uncertainties in wo or d.
It would be interesting to have available a calculation of spin transport coefficients such
as l/tp at arbitrary temperatures for comparison with our data. A full solution is available for
Fermi gases with equal populations in one spatial dimension [22, 23] and shows qualitative
features similar to our data, with a maximum of the spin drag coefficient (analogous to i) at
finite temperatures of the order of TF.
We expect our data to differ quantitatively from predictions for a homogeneous system. The
measured quantity i is a global property of the trapped system, while the momentum relaxation
New Joumal of Physics 13 (2011) 055009 (http://www.njp.org/)
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rate l/rp is a local quantity. For T >> TFt, 1/tp oc nt, and l/rp increases with increasing
n/f 2c 3 , and
majority density, while for T < TFt, due to Pauli blocking 1/rp oc EFt (T/ TFt)2
l/rp decreases with increasing majority density. Additionally, the variation in l/rp should
cause the spin current to be non-uniform. The effect of inhomogeneity should be greater at
high reduced temperatures, where the minority cloud size approaches the majority cloud size.
The inset in figure 2 shows the ratio of the cloud sizes RJ/Rt as a function of the reduced
temperature, where Rt) is the l/e width in the z-direction from a 2D Gaussian fit to the
majority (minority) column density. Indeed, RS/Rf increases with increasing TITFt. Even
at the lowest temperatures, R,/Rf remains significant, attaining a value of 0.7, due to the
finite minority fraction N/Nt 0.1. The effect of inhomogeneity is therefore reduced at low
temperatures, but should remain present.
We compare our results for i at low temperatures to the low-temperature limit in [18],
which can be written as
1/rp(O)
=
EFt/h
1
C12
+
_
M*
-
2
(T
)2
--
TF
(7)
for temperatures T < TFt The prefactor c changes slightly from c = '3= 6.89 ... to c - 6.0
as the temperature rises from far below TF,, where even the minority cloud is degenerate, to
temperatures where TF < T < TFt and the minority is a classical gas [18]. In our coldest data,
T ; 0.5TF and TF;~ 0. 3 TFt, assuming m* = 1.2m. To compare our data with [18], using (7),
we set c = 2'3, a = 0.6 and m* = 1.2m. The comparison is affected by the inhomogeneous
trapping potential in the experiment, as equation (7) gives the local value of 1/rp at the
center of the majority cloud. The experimental data agree with the value from equation (7)
at the lowest temperatures measured (see figure 2). The deviation at higher temperatures is
expected as the T < TFt limit becomes inapplicable. The convergence of the experimental
data to the theoretical value at low temperature despite the inhomogeneity of the system may
be partly due to the reduced minority cloud size at low temperatures, which reduces the
effects of inhomogeneity, as discussed above. Additionally, the variation in the momentum
relaxation rate with density will to some extent cancel at moderately low temperatures, as 1/rP
changes from increasing with increasing density at high reduced temperatures to decreasing
with increasing density due to Pauli blocking at low reduced temperatures. The crossing of the
experimental curve with the predictions for a uniform system at low temperatures therefore
does not necessarily indicate that the inhomogeneity is negligible at low temperatures in this
measurement.
At high temperatures T >> TFt, , the spin transport properties of a trapped system can be
calculated from the Boltzmann transport equation. For vanishing minority fraction, we find (now
with a = 0 and m* = m and assuming harmonic trapping in all three directions) [14]
8
Ft
0.16
TFt
3 2
T '
E
T
97r / E
where E = 1 when the minority drift velocity distribution v is uniform. This result features the
expected dependence oc
TF
T
on temperature. The relative velocity between the two spin states
We omit a term due to the relative velocity of the spin up and spin-down clouds, which produces a correction of
less than 1% in the overdamped, finite-temperature regime accessed in this experiment.
3
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cannot be truly constant in space but has to be depressed in the center, where the density is
highest and the momentum relaxation is fastest. In general,
f d'rv (
d=2
f
)e-fiv
d 3 rv (r)e-Pv
(9)
where V is the trapping potential (here assumed to be quadratic). For example, for a quadratic
drift velocity profile, vt (r) = ax2 + by 2 + cz 2 , the predicted i is reduced by factor of E = 2.
We find that the high-temperature result (8) with E = 2 leads to close agreement with our
experimental results (figure 2). This model is interesting because it estimates the effects of
inhomogeneous density and velocity distributions, but it has shortcomings. The drift velocity
should remain non-zero everywhere, rather than going to zero at the origin as in the quadratic
case, and should have a radial component. A full quantitative description of the overdamped
spin-dipole motion in the high-temperature limit in an external trapping potential will therefore
be more complex.
3. A superfluid with small spin polarization
We extend the method of the previous section to study spin transport in Fermi gases with
resonant interactions and small spin imbalance. When the global polarization
-N is less
than about 75% in a harmonically trapped Fermi gas at low temperature and with resonant
interactions, the system phase separates into a superfluid core surrounded by a polarized normal
state region [15, 16, 21]. The superfluid core is visible as a sharp reduction in the density
difference of the two spin states [16]. The transition between the superfluid and the imbalanced
normal regions forms a sharp interface below a tricritical point, where the density imbalance
jumps between the two regions [39]. Scattering and spin transport at the interface between a
normal and superfluid Fermi gas have been considered theoretically in [20, 41].
To observe spin transport in an imbalanced gas containing a superfluid, we prepare a
spin mixture with a global polarization of 17(3)%. The gas is cooled at 300 G and again
at 834 G after creating the spin-dipole excitation as described in the previous section. Two
off-resonant phase contrast images are taken to measure the densities of each spin state. An
imaging pulse tuned halfway between the resonance frequencies of the two states directly
measures the difference in the column densities (figure 3(a)), while a second pulse, red-detuned
from both states (figure 3(b)), provides additional information needed to reconstruct the total
column density in each state [39]. From the column densities of each state, we obtain 3D density
distributions using the inverse Abel transformation.
The 2D spin density (figure 3(a)) and 3D spin density (figure 3(c)) show a reduction near
the center of the trap, with the 3D density going to zero, characteristic of the superfluid
core in imbalanced Fermi gases [16]. We have checked that the shell structure remains
even after the spin density reaches equilibrium. Additionally, we estimate the temperature
T of the system to confirm that it is cold enough to contain a superfluid. In unpolarized
systems, the superfluid transition is predicted to occur at about TcITF = 0.173(6) [42], where
kBT = EF = h 2 (67r 2 n(0))2 /3/2m and n is the density per spin state. This theoretical value
agrees well with a determination of T/ TF by our group. Fitting the equation of state of a unitary
Fermi gas at zero imbalance [43] to the majority (minority) density gives an estimate Tt( of the
temperature. The fits are restricted to V,,eff > 0.3 pIK, where V,,eff = V(p, z - Z,), to exclude
New Joumal of Physics 13 (2011) 055009 (http://www.njp.org/)
10
lOP Institute of Physics
(IDEUTSCHE PHYSIKALISCHE GESELLSCHAFT
(c)
(d)
1.5-
E 1.5-
___
__ __
__
__
__
C.5
0 10.-
0.5-
_
G
0
1.
1.0-
0.0
0
0
0.00
100 200 300 400
Position (gm)
0.0
0.2 0.4 0.6
Veff/kB (gK)
0.8
Figure 3. Spin-dipole mode of an imbalanced Fermi gas with a superfluid core.
Phase contrast images are taken with imaging light detuned (a) halfway between
the resonance frequencies of the two states and (b) at large red detuning from
both states. The image in (a) is proportional to the difference in column densities
of the two states. The depletion of the density difference in the center of the cloud
indicates the superfluid region. It is displaced from the center of the majority due
to the spin-dipole excitation. Panel (c) shows the difference in reconstructed 3D
densities of the spin up and spin-down clouds as a function of the z coordinate for
z > 0. The depletion in the center again indicates pairing and superfluidity [16].
An elliptical average over a narrow range of the radial coordinate p is used
to increase the signal-to-noise ratio. (d) The temperature is estimated from
the 3D densities of the two states as a function of the effective potential Vff
defined in the text. Solid red circles: majority density, open blue circles: minority
density. The curves are fits to the densities using the equation of state of a
unitary Fermi gas at zero imbalance to get upper and lower bounds on the
temperature.
the putative superfluid region. Compared to a balanced gas at unitarity with N, = Ni = Nt, and
at the same temperature T, the majority cloud should have a larger size because the interaction
energy between the spin-up and spin-down atoms is attractive. We therefore expect that Tt
is an overestimate of T. Likewise, we expect T < T, and we consider Tt and T to provide
approximate upper and lower bounds on T.
Figure 4(a) shows the temperature bounds during the approach to equilibrium. Timeaveraging gives 0.12(1) < TI T < 0.15(2), where TF = TFt % TF4 . The error estimates include
the standard error of the mean and the systematic error from uncertainty in the potential energy
and in the density. These temperature bounds confirm that the system is in the vicinity of the
superfluid transition.
Even in the presence of the superfluid core, we still observe strong damping of the spindipole mode. Figure 4(b) shows that the displacement d between the majority and minority
centers of mass along the z-axis relaxes gradually to zero, rather than oscillating as would be
expected in a dissipationless system. The 1/e relaxation time r = 360 ms corresponds to a spin
drag coefficient [13, 22] of oz2r = 0.06(1)EFt/h, close to the maximum spin drag coefficient in
non-polarized trapped Fermi gases at unitarity [14].
New Joumal of Physics 13 (2011) 055009 (http://www.njp.org/)
l11
1OP Institute of Physics
4DEUTSCHE PHYSIKALISCHE GESELLSCHAFT
(b)
(a)
0.20*
012
0.16-
0.12-
00o
,
,
0
0-
0
00
0.08-
4
I I
0.5
1.0
1.5
II
2.0
I
2.5
Time (s)
0.5
1.0
1.5
I
I
2.0
2.5
Time (s)
Figure 4. (a) Reduced temperature as a function of time during relaxation of
the spin-dipole excitation in a spin-polarized Fermi gas containing a superfluid
region. Red solid (blue open) circles: Tt(4 )/TFt( ) from a fit to the edge of the
majority (minority) spin state using the equation of state of an unpolarized
unitary Fermi gas, giving an upper (lower) limit to true temperature. (b) The
displacement of the spin-up and spin-down centers of mass relaxes exponentially,
indicating strong spin drag despite the presence of a superfluid. Error bars: one
std. dev. from fitting error.
The strong damping is reminiscent of the friction between the normal and superfluid
component in liquid helium [44] and in atomic Bose-Einstein condensates [46]. In the latter
case, out-of-phase oscillations between the condensate and the thermal component are strongly
damped. Even at low temperatures, currents in superfluids as well as in ID superconducting
wires are still damped due to phase slips [46-48]. In the presented case of a partially polarized
Fermi gas, Andreev reflection of unpaired atoms at the normal-to-superfluid interface should
cause spin current decay even at the lowest temperatures [20, 41]. At higher temperatures or
if the majority chemical potential in the normal state region can overcome the pairing gap, the
microscopic velocity of majority atoms will significantly exceed the critical velocity of the
superfluid of about 0. 3 vF [49, 50], causing strong dissipation of spin currents. The relative
importance of dissipation at the interface versus dissipation inside the superfluid could be
determined by whether a spin current flows through the superfluid or around it. However, we
are not able to determine the spatial distribution of the spin current with our current data.
4. Conclusions
In this work, we presented our measurements on the damping of the spin-dipole mode in a highly
polarized Fermi gas with resonant interactions, over a wide range of temperatures. The damping
is seen to become weaker at temperatures significantly less than the majority Fermi energy, as
expected from Pauli blocking, i.e. the fact that quasi-particles in a Fermi liquid become long
lived at sufficiently low temperatures. These measurements provide the first quantitative test of
theoretical calculations of the spin transport properties of highly polarized Fermi gases. We also
observe spin transport in a Fermi gas with low spin polarization containing a superfluid region.
It is found that the spin-dipole motion remains strongly damped, revealing the importance of
friction between the superfluid and the normal component, possibly accompanied by reflection
processes at the interface.
New Joumal of Physics 13 (2011) 055009 (http://www.njp.org/)
loPInstitute of Physics (I)DEUTSCHE PHYSIKALISCHE GESELLSCHAFT
12
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the NSF, AFOSR-MURI, AFOSR-YIP, ARO-MURI, ONR,
DARPA YFA, a grant from the Army Research Office with funding from the DARPA OLE
program, the David and Lucille Packard Foundation and the Alfred P Sloan Foundation.
The authors thank Andr6 Schirotzek, Giacomo Roati and Peyman Ahmadi for experimental
assistance and David Huse for interesting discussions.
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144
Appendix C
Revealing the Superfluid Lambda
Transition in the Universal
Thermodynamics of a Unitary
Fermi Gas
This appendix contains a reprint of Ref. [85]: Mark J. H. Ku, Ariel T. Sommer,
Lawrence W. Cheuk, Martin W. Zwierlein, Revealing the Superfluid Lambda Transition in the Universal Thermodynamics of a Unitary Fermi Gas, Science 335, 563-567
(2012).
145
REPORTS
will slow down their spin rates with time after the
RLDP. However, they cannot explain the apparent
difference in spin distributions between AXMSPs
and radio MSPs, because radio MSPs, which
have weak surface magnetic field strengths, could
not spin down by the required amount even in a
Hubble time. The true age of a pulsar (23) is given
by t = P/((n - l)P)[I - (Po/P)"nl. Assuming an evolution with a braking index n = 3
and B = 1.0x 108 G, the time scale t is larger
than 10 Gy, using Po = (P)AxsP = 3.3 mis and
P(t) = (P)P = 5.5 ms. To make things worse,
one has to add the main-sequence lifetime of the
LMXB donor star, which is typically 3 to 12 Gy,
thereby reaching unrealistic large total ages. Although the statistics of AXMSPs still has its basis
in small numbers and care must be taken for both
detection biases (such as eclipsing effects of radio
MSPs) and comparison between various subpopulations (8), it is evident from both observations and theoretical work that the RLDP effect
presented here plays an important role for the
spin distribution of MSPs.
The RLDP effect may also help explain a few
other puzzles, for example, why characteristic (or
spin-down) ages of radio MSPs often largely exceed cooling age determinations of their white
dwarf companions (24). It has been suggested
that standard cooling models ofwhite dwarfs may
not be correct (25-27), particularly for low-mass
helium white dwarfs. These white dwarfs avoid
hydrogen shell flashes at early stages and retain
thick hydrogen envelopes, at the bottom ofwhich
residual hydrogen burning can continue for several billion years after their formation, keeping the
white dwarfs relatively hot (~104 K) and thereby
appearing much younger than they actually are.
However, it is well known that the characteristic
age is not a trustworthy measure of true age (28),
and the RLDP effect exacerbates this discrepancy
even further. In the model calculation presented
in Fig. 1, it was assumed that B = 1.0 x 10" G
and y = 1.0. However, P0 and to depend strongly on bothB and p. This is shown in Fig. 2, where
I have calculated the RLDP effect for different
choices of B and p by using the same stellar
donor model [i.e., same At) profile] as before.
The use of other LMXB donor star masses, metallicities, and initial orbital periods would lead
to otherVt) profiles (16, 17) and hence different
evolutionary tracks. The conclusion is that recycled
MSPs can basically be bom with any characteristic
age. Thus, we are left with the cooling age of the
white dwarf companion as the sole reliable, although
still not accurate, measure as an age indicator.
A final puzzle is why no sub-millisecond pulsars have been found among the 216 radio MSPs
detected in total so far. Although modem observational techniques are sensitive enough to pick
up sub-millisecond radio pulsations, the fastest
of about 1500 Hz. It has been suggested that gravitational wave radiation during the accretion phase
halts the spin period above a certain level (30,31).
The RLDP effect presented here is a promising
candidate for an alternative mechanism, in case a
sub-millisecond AXMSP is detected (8).
References and Notes
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van den Heuvel,
25. F. Alberts, G. 1. Savonije, E. P. ).
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[Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) Conference Series,
San Francisco, CA, 20051, voL 328, pp. 357-370.
28. This is the case if the pulsar spin period, P, is close to its
initial spin period, P0.
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30. L. Bildsten, Astrophys. 1. 501, L89 (1998).
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C\I
T5
0U
2
r0
Acknowledgments: I gratefully thank N. Langer and
M. Kramer for discussions and funding and without whom
these results would not be possible and R. Eatough for
helpful comments on the SOM. This work was partly supported
by the Cluster of Excellence proposal EXC 1076, "The nature
of forces and matter," at the University of Bonn. Radio
pulsar data has been obtained from the AINF Pulsar Catalogue
(www.atnf.csiro.au/research/pulsar/psrcat/).
C
0
I_
0
CZ
E
Cq
0
Supporting Online Material
www.sciencemag.org/cgi/contentfutV/335/6068/561/DC1
Materials and Methods
SOM Text
Figs. 51 and S2
References (38-54)
0
8 November 2011; accepted 6 January 2012
10.1126/science.1216355
0
co
~0
0
Revealing the Superfluid Lambda
Transition in the Universal
Thermodynamics of a Unitary Fermi Gas
Mark ]. H. Ku, Ariel T. Sommer, Lawrence W. Cheuk, Martin W. Zwierlein*
Fermi gases, collections of fermions such as neutrons and electrons, are found throughout nature, from
solids to neutron stars. Interacting Fermi gases can form a superfluid or, for charged fermions, a
superconductor. We have observed the superfluid phase transition in a strongly interacting Fermi gas by
high-precision measurements of the local compressibility, density, and pressure. Our data completely
determine the universal thermodynamics of these gases without any fit or external thermometer. The
onset of superfluidity is observed in the compressibility, the chemical potential, the entropy, and the heat
capacity, which displays a characteristic lambda-like feature at the critical temperature T/JF = 0.167(13).
The ground-state energy is } N EF with
= 0.376(4). Our measurements provide a benchmark for
many-body theories of strongly interacting fermions.
spinning known radio MSP, J1748-2446ad (29),
has a spin frequency of only 716 Hz, corresponding to a spin period of 1.4 ms. This spin rate is
far from the expected minimum equilibrium spin
period (8) and the physical mass shedding limit
hase transitions are ubiquitous in nature:
Water freezes into ice, electron spins suddenly align as materials turn into magnets,
and metals become superconducting. Near the
www.sciencemag.org
SCIENCE
VOL 335
transitions, many systems exhibit critical behavior, reflected by singularities in thermodynamic
quantities: The magnetic susceptibility diverges
at a ferromagnetic transition, and the specific heat
3 FEBRUARY 2012
1
563
REPORTS
shows a jump at superconducting and superfluid
transitions (1, 2), resolved as the famous lambda
peak in 4He (3). A novel form of superfluidity has
been realized in trapped, ultracold atomic gases of
strongly interacting fennions, particles with halfinteger spin (4-7). Thanks to an exquisite control
over relevant system parameters, these gases have
recently emerged as a versatile system well suited
to solve open problems in many-body physics (7).
Initial measurements on the thermodynamics
of strongly interacting Fermi gases have focused
on trap-averaged quantities (8-10) in which the
superfluid transition is inherently difficult to observe. The emergence ofthe condensate of fermion
pairs in a spin-balanced Fermi gas is accompanied by only minute changes in the gas density
(5). Quantities that involve integration ofthe density over the local potential, such as the energy
E (11) and the pressure P (12), are only weakly
sensitive to the sudden variations in the thermodynamics of the gas expected near the superfluid
phase transition (13).
For a neutral gas, thermodynamic quantities
involving the second derivative of the pressure P
are expected to become singular at the secondorder phase transition into the superfluid state.
An example is the isothermal compressibility
Ic =
, the relative change of the gas density
n due to a change in the pressure P.Because the
change in pressure is related to the change in
chemical potential g of the gas via dP= n dg at
constant temperature, 'C = - V is a second derivative of the pressure, and thus should reveal
a clear signature of the transition.
The general strategy to determine the thermodynamic properties of a given substance is to
measure an equation of state (EoS), such as the
pressure P(pT) as a fiuction of the chemical potential g and the temperature T Equivalently, replacing the pressure by the density n = f IT, one
can determine the density EoSn(p,T). We directly
measure the local gas density n(V) as a function of
the local potential V from in situ absorption
images of a trapped, strongly interacting Fermi
gas of 6Li atoms at a Feshbach resonance (5).
The trapping potential is cylindrically symmetric,
Our method has been tested on the noninteracting Fermi gas that can be studied in two independent ways: in spin-balanced gases near the
zero-crossing of the scattering length and in the
wings of highly imbalanced clouds at unitarity,
where only one spin state is present locally. Both
determinations yield the same noninteracting compressibility EoS (Fig. 1).
Figure 1 also shows the compressibility equation of state f () for the unitary Fermi gas. In the
high-temperature ( >> 1) regime, the pressure,
and hence all other thermodynamic quantities, allow for a Virial expansion in terms ofthe fugacity
e0 (18): P A 3 = 2L,bj eh, with the nth-order
Virial coefficients b,. It is known that bi = 1,b2=
3V/8, andb 3 =-0.29095295 (18); our data show
good agreement with the third-oider Virial expansion. Fixing b2 and b3, our measurement yields a
prediction for b4 = +0.065(10), in agreement with
(12), but contradicting a recent four-body calculation that gives a negative sign (19).
At degenerate temperatures (fi; 1), the normalized compressibility rises beyond that of a
noninteracting Fermi gas, as expected for an attractively interacting gas. A sudden rise of the compressibility at around . = 0.55, followed by a
decrease at lower temperatures marks the superfluid transition. The expected singularity of the
compressibility at the transition is rounded off by
the finite resolution of our imaging system. Below the transition point, the decrease of the compressibility is consistent with the expectation from
Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer(BCS) theory, in which
hence the local compressibility is c =
-vr
We can then replace the unknown chemical potential g in the density EoS n(p,T) by the known
variation of n with g in the atom trap, given by r.
Instead of the a priori unknown temperature T,
we determine the pressure P(V) = fvdsi'n(p') =
JV dV'n(V') given by the integral of the density
over the potential (16). The resulting equation of
state n(icP) contains only quantities that can be
directly obtained from the density distribution.
This represents a crucial advance over previous
methods that require the input of additional thermodynamic quantities, such as the temperature T
and the chemical potential p, whose determina-
tion requires the use of a fitting procedure or an
external thermometer, as in (11, 12).
We normalize the compressibility and the pressure by the respective quantities at the same
local density for a noninteracting Fermi gas at
3 1
, and Po = !nEF, where
T = 0, ico=
EF = b2(32n)2 3 is the local Fermi energy and m is
EF= 2m
the particle mass, yielding R =-vico/and =P/Po.
For dilute gases at the Feshbach resonance, the
scattering length diverges and is no longer a relevant length scale. In the absence of an interactiondependent length scale, the thermodynamics of
such resonant gases are universal (17), and i is a
universal function of 0 only. Every experimental
profile n(V), irrespective of the trapping potential,
the total number ofatoms, or the temperature, must
produce the same universal curve i versusP. By
averaging many profiles, one obtains a low-noise
determination of R (p).
4.
3.
0
-s
Ca
E
a)
C
~0
I
a
30
0
'4I
0
4,
2
'4-
Abel transform of the measured column density
S64
0
0
tion; this symmetry allows us to find the threedimensional (3D) density through the inverse
Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT), MIT Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms, and Research
Laboratory of Electronics, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
*To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-maiL
zwierlein@mit.edu
ci
E
with harmonic confinement along the axial direc-
(14,15). The local potential is directly determined
from the atomic density distribution and the accurately known harmonic potential along the axial
direction.
The compressibility ic follows as the change
of the density n with respect to the local potential
Vexperienced by the trapped gas. The change in
the local chemical potential is given by the negative change in the local potential, dg = -d, and
CJ
0
0. -- .
i-
.
1
2
3
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
4
P/P 0
Fig. 1. Normalized compressibility ic/o versus normalized pressure PIPo of the unitary Fermi gas (red
solid circles). Each data point is the average of between 30 and 150 profiles. The error bars show mean ±
SD, including systematic errors from image calibration (13). Blue solid line: third-order Virial expansion.
Black open squares (black open diamonds): data for a noninteracting Fermi gas obtained with a highly spinimbalanced mixture at the Feshbach resonance (spin-balanced gas near zero-crossing of the scattering
length). Black solid curve: theory for a noninteracting Fermi gas. Black dashed curve: the relation ic= 1/i
that must be obeyed at zero temperature both for the noninteracting gas 6c= 1p= 1) and the unitary gas
(i = 1/0 = 1/%) (dotted lines). Gray band: the uncertainty region for the T= 0 value of fc = 1/4 and P= 4.
Blue dashed curve: model for the EoS of the unitary Fermi gas [above T; interpolation from the Monte
Carlo calculation (34); below T,- BCS theory, including phonon and pair-breaking excitations]. Green solid
curve: effect of 2 jim optical resolution on the model EoS.
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REPORTS
single-part icle excitations freeze out and pairs form
(see mode 1 in Fig. 1).
As T - 0, the Fermi energy EF is the only
intensive energy scale, so the chemical potential
must be re lated to EF by a universal number, g =
4EF, wher a is known as the Bertsch parameter
(6, 7). It f ollows that at T= 0, i = 1/0 = 1/ (13).
The extralpolation of the low-temperature experimental da ta for i (f) toward the curve i = 1/p
gives 4 = ( .37(l), a value that we find consistently
for the normalized chemical potential, energy, and
free energ y at our lowest temperatures.
From the universal function i (,), we obtain
all other thiermodynamic quantities of the unitary
gas. First, to find the normalized temperature T/TF
(where kB TF = EF), note that the change in pressure with T/TF at constant temperature is related to th e compressibility. One finds-(7%H =
so by integration (13)
T
TF
IT\
(F
/
ex
1
2P
(1)
p
where (T/ TFi is the normalized temperature at an
initial non nalized pressure fi that can be chosen
to lie in th e Virial regime validated above.
A
Thanks to the relation E = jPV, valid at
unitarity (17), we can also directly obtain the heat
capacity per particle at constant volume V (13),
_
(
ces to explain the rounding of the singularity
expected from criticality. The rounding also reduces the observed jump in the heat capacity at
(2)
the transition. We obtain a lower bound AC/C,,
_
k NT
3 TF
kBN
=
N,V
5 d(T/TF)
--
(C-C)/C,> l.0I,
Figure 2 shows the normalized compressibility
and the specific heat as a function of T/TF At
high temperatures, the specific heat approaches
that of a noninteracting Fermi gas and eventually
Cv = 1 N kB, the value for a Boltzmann gas. A
dramatic rise is observed for T/TF at around 0.16,
followed by a steep drop at lower temperatures.
Such a X-shaped feature in the specific heat is
characteristic of second-order phase transitions,
as in the famous X transition in 4He (3). Jumps in
the specific heat are well known from supercon3
ductors (1)and He (2). In experiments on atomic
gases, such jumps had only been inferred from
derivatives to fit functions that implied a jump
(20, 21). We do not expect to resolve the critical
behavior very close to T,. Because ofthe spatially
varying chemical potential in our trapped sample,
the critical region is confined to a narrow shell.
4
3
2
1
Based on the estimate in (22), the thickness of the
critical shell is 1% of the cloud size. The finite
resolution of our imaging system (2 Am or about
5% of the cloud size in the radial direction) suf-
.
where C,/N(C/N) is the
specific heat per particle at the peak (the onset of
the sudden rise). Considering the strong interactions, this is surprisingly close to the BCS
value of 1.43 (1). Below T, the specific heat is
expected to decrease as ~ exp(-Ao/kB T) due to
the pairing gap Ao. At low temperatures, T << T,
the phonon contribution 0c T3 dominates (23).
This behavior is consistent with our data, but the
phonon regime is not resolved.
To validate our in situ measurements of the
superfluid phase transition, we have employed
the rapid ramp method to detect fermion pair condensation (24, 25). The results (Fig. 2C) show
that the onset of condensation and the sudden rise
in specific heat and compressibility all occur at
the same critical temperature, within the error bars.
Unlike previous experimental determinations of
T/TF for the homogeneous unitary Fermi gas
(11, 12), we determine T/TF directly from the density profiles, finding a sudden rise in the specific
heat and the onset of condensation at T/TF =
0.167(13). This value is determined as the midpoint of the sudden rise, and the error is assessed
as the shift due to the uncertainty ofthe Feshbach
resonance (13). This is in very good agreement
with theoretical determinations, such as the selfconsistent T-matrix approach that gives T/TF
0.16 (23), and Monte Carlo calculations that give
0
C\1
ei
C
c
0
0
0)
-s
E
a)
C-
U
E
0
T/TF= 0.171(5) (26) and 0.152(7) (27). There is
0.2
2.5
B
0.4
0.6
0.8
a current debate on the possibility of a pseudogap phase of preformed pairs above T (12, 28).
A pairing gap for single-particle excitations above
the transition should be signaled by a downtum
of the specific heat above T, which is not observed in our measurements.
1.2
1.0
'a 2
.0
.5
1
.0
0.5
0.0
C
Z
b
0.50.40.30.2.
0.10.0.
~0
7E
0
0
From the definition of the compressibility
a-I
IC -
-K
0.2
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
Ia
, we can obtain the reduced chemical
potential p/EF as a finction ofthe T/TF (Fig.3A)
(13). This function is here obtained from measured
quantities, rather than from numerical derivatives
1.2
1.0
ofdata that involved uncontrolled thermometry (11).
In the interval of T/TF from around 0.25 to 1,
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
the chemical potential is close to that of a noninteracting Fermi gas, shifted by (& - I)EF because of interactions present in the normal state,
1.2
with n
T/TF
Fig. 2. (A) Normaliz ed compressibility ~= [2/3]1c n EF and (B) specific heat per particle Cv/Nks of a
unitary Fermi gas as a function of reduced temperature T/TF (solid red circles). Black solid curve: theory for
a noninteracting Fernmi gas. Blue solid curve: third-order Virial expansion for the unitary gas. Black open
= 0.45. Unlike a normal Fermi gas, the
chemical potential attains a maximum of P/EF=
0.42(l) at T/TF=0.171(10), and then decreases at
lower temperatures, as expected for a superfluid
of paired fermions (23). As the temperature is in-
squares: data for the normalized compressibility as a function of TTF of a noninteracting Fermi gas
creased from zero in a superfluid, first the emer-
(combining data from both highly imbalanced gases at unitarity and balanced gases near zero-crossing).
Blue dashed (green solid) curve: model from Fig. 1, excluding (including) the effect of finite imaging
resolution. (C) Global condensate fraction at unitarity as determined from a rapid ramp to the molecular
side of the Feshbach resonance, plotted as a function of local TTF at the trap center. The onset of condensation coincides with the sudden rise of the specific heat. Error bars, mean ± SD.
slope for pJEF, in agreement with our observa-
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VOL 335
gence of phonons (sound excitations) and then
the breaking of fermion pairs contribute to increasing the chemical potential. At T, the singular compressibility implies a sharp change in
3 FEBRUARY 2012
565
REPORTS
tion and theory (23). At low temperatures, the
reduced chemical potential p/EF saturates to the
universal value . As the internal energy E and
the free energy F satisfy E(T)> E(O)=N EF=
F(O) > F(T) for all T, the reduced quantities
fE
and F = 3 =E -- (Fig.
3A) provide upper and lower bouns for e(29).
Taking the coldest points of these three curves and
including the systematic error due to the effective
interaction range, we find 4 = 0.376(4). The uncertainty in the Feshbach resonance is expected
to shift 4 by at most 2% (13). This value is con-
sistent with arecentupper bound t <0.383(1) from
S= 0.415(10) (35) and disagree with the energy
measurement in (11) that used a thermometry inconsistent with the Virial expansion (10). Around
deviate from a previous experimental determination of the pressure EoS (12) that was calibrated with an independently measured value of
B
A 0.7'
2.5-
1
-i
0.6-
2.0-~
0
a:' 0.5,
1.5-
u 0.4
1.0.
(30), is close to 4 = 0.36(1) from a self-consistent
T-matrix calculation (23), and agrees with 4 =
0.367(9) from an epsilon expansion (31). It lies
below earlier estimates 4 = 0.44(2) (32) and 4 =
0.42(1) (33) from fixed-node quantum Monte Carlo
calculation that provides upper bounds on 4. Our
measurement agrees with several less accurate experimental determinations (6) but disagrees with
0.3
I%
0.5a
the most recent experimental value 0.415(10) that
was used to calibrate the pressure in (12).
From the energy, pressure, and chemical potential, we can obtain the entropy S= 4(E + PV pN), and hence the entropy per particle S/NkB =
~FT
"-)as a
EF
function of TITF (Fig. 3B). At
high temperatures, S is close to the entropy of
an ideal Fermi gas at the same T/Tr.Above T,
the entropy per particle is nowhere small compared with kB. Also, the specific heat Cy is not
linear in Tin the normal phase. This shows that
the nonnal regime above T cannot be described in
terms ofa Landau Fermi Liquid picture, although
some thermodynamic quantities agree surprisingly well with the expectation for a Fermi liquid
[see (12) and (13)]. Below about T/TF= 0.17, the
entropy starts to strongly fall offcompared with that
of a noninteracting Fermi gas, which we again
interpret as the fiezing out ofsingle-particle excitations as a result of the formation of fermion pairs.
Far below T, phonons dominate. They only have a
minute contribution to the entropy (23), less than
0.02 kE at 77TF = 0.1, consistent with our measurements. At the critical point, we obtain S, =0.73(13)
Nk8 , in agreement with theory (23). It is encourag-
0.0.
tjmz
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
A 4.5-
B 3.5
4.0-
El
566
0
CM
0
0a
E
C)
C
Cq
-
3.0-
0
3.5-
--
E
0
--
0
0
S00
iE 3.0
El
000
2.5
0
0
I-: 2.0~
2.5
0
=L
2.0
0 +S
1.5-
magnetically ordered phases.
From the
chemical potential P /EF and T/TF
I
41in
T37I (7,,; 3 , we finally obtain the density EoS
with the de Broglie wave-
1.0.
t fp(f4s), withfp = }Tfff(pps).
Figure 4 shows the density and pressure normalized by their noninteracting counterparts at
the same chemical potential and temperature. For
the normal state, a concurrent theoretical calculation employing a new Monte Carlo method
agrees excellently with our data (34). Our data
0.6
,
1.5,
as P(pT)
0.4
T/TF
Fig. 3. (A) Chemical potential g, energy E, and free energy F of the unitary Fermi gas versus TF g (red
solid circles) is normalized by the Fermi energy EF, and E (black solid circle) and F (green solid circle) are
normalized by E0 = 5N EF- At high temperatures, all quantities approximately track those for a noninteracting Fermi gas, shifted by E,, - 1 (dashed curves). The peak in the chemical potential signals the
onset of superfluidity. Inthe deeply superfluid regime at low temperatures, W/EF, EIEO, and F/FO all approach
(blue dashed line). (B) Entropy per particle. At high temperatures, the entropy closely tracks that of a
noninteracting Fermi gas (black solid curve). The open squares are from the self-consistent T-matrix
calculation (23). A few representative error bars are shown, representing mean ± SD.
lattices that we obtain entropies less than 0.04 N
kB, far below critical entropies required to reach
h . The pressure EoS follows
0.2
T/TF
ing for future experiments with fennions in optical
length X
0.0
c-1
-.
$00
0
2
1.0
4
p/kBT
0
2
4
p/kBT
Fig. 4. (A) Density and (B) pressure of a unitary Fermi gas versus p/kg T, normalized by the density and
pressure of a noninteracting Fermi gas at the same chemical potential p and temperature T. Red solid
circles: experimental EoS. Blue dashed curves: low-temperature behavior with 4 = 0.364 (upper), 0.376
(middle), and 0.388 (lower). Black dashed curve: low-temperature behavior with 4 at upper bound of 0.383
from (30). Green solid circles (black fine dashed line): MIT experimental data (theory) for the ideal Fermi
gas. Blue solid squares (blue curve): diagrammatic Monte Carlo calculation (34) for density (pressure, with
blue dashed curves denoting the uncertainty bands). Solid green line: third-order Virial expansion. Open
black squares: self-consistent T-matrix calculation (23). Open green circles: lattice calculation (36). Orange
star and blue triangle: critical point from the Monte Carlo calculations (26) and (27), respectively. Solid
diamonds: Ecole Normale Sup6rieure experiment (12). Purple open diamonds: Tokyo experiment (11).
3 FEBRUARY 2012
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the critical point, the density shows a strong variation, whereas the pressure, the integral of the
density over g at constant T,is naturally less sensitive to the superfluid transition.
In conclusion, we have performed thermodynamic measurements of the unitary Fermi gas
across the superfluid phase transition at the level
of uncertainty of a few percent, without any fits
or input from theory, enabling validation of theories for strongly interacting matter. Similar unbiased methods can be applied to other systems,
for example, two-dimensional Bose and Fermi
gases or fermions in optical lattices.
References and Notes
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S. Nascimbene,
Iron Catalysts for Selective
Anti-Markovnikov Alkene
Hydrosilylation Using Tertiary Silanes
Aaron M. Tondreau,' Crisita Carmen Hojilla Atienza,l Keith
Kenrick M. Lewis, 3 Johannes G. P. Delis, 4 Paul ]. Chirikl*
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Acknowledgments: We thank B. Svistunov, N. Prokof ev,
and F. Werner for fruitful discussions; Z. Hadzibabic for
a critical reading of the manuscript; the authors of
(11, 12, 23, 26, 27, 36) for kindly providing us with their
data; and Andrd Schirotzek for help during the early
stages of the experiment. M.J.H.K. acknowledges financial
support from NSERC. This work was supported by the NSF,
Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) - Multidisciplinary
Research Program of the University Research Initiative
(MURI), Army Research Office (ARO) - MURI, Office of Naval
Research, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
Young Faculty Award, a grant from the ARO with funding
from the DARPA Optical Lattice Emulator program, an
AFOSR Presidential Early Career Award in Science and
Engineering, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation,
and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
erization ofthe terminal alkenes to internal isomers.
Undesired isomerization often necessitates subsequent purification steps that are both energy
and cost intensive. Furthermore, decomposition
of the catalyst to colloidal platinum contributes to
-a
0
unwanted side reactions and also causes discoloration of the final products.
a0)
0
V
and other emerging technologies, has increased the
volatility of the platinum market (14). The combination of chemicaL, economic, and political challenges inspires the exploration of inexpensive and
Earth-abundant catalysts using iron, manganese,
and cobalt (15). At the core of this challenge is suppressing tendencies of first-row transition metals
toward one-electron redox processes in favor of the
two-electron chemistry associated with the heavier
metals that probably make up the fidamental
steps in a catalytic cycle for alkene hydrosilylation.
compounds of platinum and rhodium, have been used as catalysts for this reaction class. Despite
their widespread application, limitations such as high and volatile catalyst costs and competing
side reactions have persisted. Here, we report that well-characterized molecular iron coordination
compounds promote the selective anti-Markovnikov addition of sterically hindered, tertiary silanes
to alkenes under mild conditions. These Earth-abundant base-metal catalysts, coordinated by
ligands, show promise for industrial application.
Metal-catalyzed
For more than three decades, precious metal compounds with Pt, Pd, Ru, and Rh have been used
almost exclusively as catalysts. Platinum compounds such as Karstedt's and Speier's cata-
finds widespread application in the commercial
manufacture of silicone-based surfactants, fluids,
molding products, release coatings, and pressuresensitive adhesives (3, 4). Consequently, hydrosilylation has emerged as one of the largest-scale
applications of homogeneous catalysis (5-9).
lysts, Pt2 {[(CH 21=CH)SiMeP2O} 3 (Me, methyl) and
H2PLCl6 6H 20/ PrOH('Pr, isopropyl), respectively, are the most widely used industrial catalysts
(1, 10-12), though they suffer from chemical limitations such as intolerance to amino-substituted
olefins and a tendency to catalyze competing isom-
SCIENCE
VOL 335
ci()
0
0
E
0)
E
0
It has been estimated that the worldwide silicone industry consumed -180,000 troy ounces
(5.6 metric tons) ofplatinumin2007 and most is not
recovered (13). The high cost, coupled with the in-
Susan A. Nye,2
commercial production of numerous consumer goods. For decades, precious metals, principally
www.sciencemag.org
c\1
7 October 2011; accepted 3 January 2012
Published online 12 January 2012;
10.1126/science.1214987
creasing demands on precious metals due to fuel-cell
ments across a carbon-carbon double bond (1, 2),
c\J
www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/science.1214987/DC1
Materials and Methods
Figs. 51 to S4
References (37-45)
is one of the largest-scale industrial applications of homogeneous catalysis and is used in the
forns alkylsilanes by cleaving a siliconolefinhydrosilylation,
hydrogen bond
and adding the which
frag-
CMo
Supporting Online Material
Alkene hydrosilylation, the addition of a silicon hydride (Si-H) across a carbon-carbon double bond,
optimized bis(imino)pyridine
cm
'Department of Chemistry, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
2
08544, USA. Momentive Performance Materials, 260 Hudson
3
River Road, Waterford, NY 12188, USA. Momentive PerformSaw
Mill
River
Road, Tarrytown, NY
ance Materials, 769 Old
4
10591, USA. Momentive Performance Materials bv, Plasticslaan
1, 4612PX Bergen op Zoom, Netherlands.
*To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:
pchirik@princeton.edu
3 FEBRUARY 2012
567
Appendix D
Evolution of Fermion Pairing from
Three to Two Dimensions
This appendix contains a reprint of Ref. [147]: Ariel T. Sommer, Lawrence W. Cheuk,
Mark J. H. Ku, Waseem S. Bakr, and Martin W. Zwierlein, Evolution of Fermion
Pairingfrom Three to Two Dimensions, Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 045302 (2012).
151
M Selected for a Viewpoint in Physics
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LETTERS
Evolution of Fermion Pairing from Three to Two Dimensions
Ariel T. Sommer, Lawrence W. Cheuk, Mark J. H. Ku, Waseem S. Bakr, and Martin W. Zwierlein
Department of Physics, MIT-Harvard Centerfor UltracoldAtoms, and Research Laboratory of Electronics, MIT
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
(Received 13 October 2011; published 23 January 2012)
We follow the evolution of fermion pairing in the dimensional crossover from three-dimensional to twodimensional as a strongly interacting Fermi gas of 6 Li atoms becomes confined to a stack of twodimensional layers formed by a one-dimensional optical lattice. Decreasing the dimensionality leads to
the opening of a gap in radio-frequency spectra, even on the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer side of a
Feshbach resonance. The measured binding energy of fermion pairs closely follows the theoretical
two-body binding energy and, in the two-dimensional limit, the zero-temperature mean-field BoseEinstein-condensation to Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer crossover theory.
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.045302
PACS numbers: 67.85.-d, 03.75.Lm, 05.30.Fk, 32.30.Bv
Interacting fermions in coupled two-dimensional (2D)
layers present unique physical phenomena and are central
to the description of unconventional superconductivity in
high-transition-temperature cuprates [1] and layered organic conductors [2]. Experiments on ultracold gases of
fermionic atoms have allowed access to the crossover from
Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of tightly bound fermion pairs to Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superfluidity of long-range Cooper pairs in three spatial
dimensions [3,4] and, more recently, the confinement of
interacting Fermi gases to two spatial dimensions [5-9]. A
fermionic superfluid loaded into a periodic potential should
form stacks of two-dimensional superfluids with tunable
interlayer coupling [10-13], an ideal model for Josephsoncoupled quasi-2D superconductors [1,14]. For deep potentials in the regime of uncoupled 2D layers, increasing the
temperature of the gas is expected to destroy superfluidity
through the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless mechanism
[15-17], while more exotic multiplane vortex loop excitations are predicted for a three-dimensional (3D) anisotropic BCS superfluid near the critical point [18].
In this Letter, we study fermion pairing across the crossover from 3D to 2D in a periodic potential of increasing
depth. To form a bound state in 3D, the attraction between
two particles in a vacuum must exceed a certain threshold.
However, if the two particles interact in the presence of a
Fermi sea, the Cooper mechanism allows pairing for arbitrarily weak interactions [19]. In 2D, even two particles in a
vacuum can bind for arbitrarily weak interactions.
Surprisingly, the mean-field theory of the BEC-BCS crossover in 2D predicts that the binding energy of fermion pairs
in the many-body system is identical to the two-body
binding energy Eb [20]. Indeed, to break a pair and remove
one pairing partner from the system costs an energy [21]
Eb,MF = iT2 ± A2 - A within mean-field theory, where
/t is the chemical potential and A is the pairing gap. In 2D,
one finds [20] /1 = EF - Eb/2 and A2 = 2 EFEb, where
EF is the Fermi energy, and thus EbMF = Eb; i.e., the
0031-9007/ 12/,108(4)/045302(5)
many-body and two-body binding energies are predicted
to be identical throughout the BEC-BCS crossover.
We realize a system that is tunable from 3D to 2D with a
gas of ultracold fermionic 6 Li atoms trapped in an optical
trap and a standing-wave optical lattice. The lattice produces a periodic potential along the z direction,
V(z)
= Vosin2(rz/d),
(1)
with depth Vo and lattice spacing d = 532 nm. Together
with the optical trap, the lattice interpolates between the
3D and 2D limits. It gradually freezes out motion along one
dimension and confines particles in increasingly uncoupled
layers. Features characteristic of the 2D system appear as
the strength of the periodic potential is increased. The
threshold for pairing is reduced, allowing pairs to form
for weaker attractive interactions than in the 3D system.
The effective mass of particles increases along the confined
direction, and the center of mass and relative degrees of
freedom of an atom pair become coupled [11]. For a deep
potential that suppresses interlayer tunneling, the system
is an array of uncoupled two-dimensional layers. Here,
the center of mass and relative motion decouple and fermion pairs form for the weakest interatomic attraction
[11,22,23].
In the experiment, the appearance of bound fermion
pairs is revealed using radio-frequency (rf) spectroscopy.
The atomic gas consists of an equal mixture of 6Li atoms in
the first and third hyperfine states (denoted as 11) and 13)),
chosen to minimize final-state interaction effects in the rf
spectra [24]. Interactions between atoms in states 11) and
13) are greatly enhanced by a broad Feshbach resonance at
690.4(5) G [25]. An rf pulse is applied to transfer atoms
from one of the initial hyperfine states to the unoccupied
second hyperfine state (denoted as 12)). In previous work
on rf spectroscopy of 40 K fermions in a deep onedimensional (lD) lattice [8], an rf pulse transferred atoms
from an initially weakly interacting state into a strongly
interacting spin state, likely producing polarons [26]. In
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our Letter, the initial state is the strongly interacting,
largely paired Fermi gas in equilibrium, and the final state
is weakly interacting.
An asymmetric dissociation peak (the bound-to-free
transition) in the rf spectrum indicates the presence of
fermion pairs. For two-particle binding, the pair dissociation line shape in the 3D and 2D limits is proportional to
p(hp - Eb)/v 2 , with p the free-particle density of states
and p = _(±r - vh) the offset of the rf frequency ir'
from the hyperfine splitting vh (plus symbol: |1) -+ 12)
transition; minus symbol: 13) -+ 12) transition). This form
can be obtained from Fermi's golden rule and the boundstate wave function in momentum space; see also
Refs. [21,27]. In 2D, the expected dissociation line shape
is then proportional to
() 6(hv
-
Eb)
In addition to the pairing peak, at finite temperature one
expects a peak in the rf spectrum due to unbound atoms
(the free-to-free transition). A narrow bound-to-bound
transition can also be driven at an offset frequency Vbb =
(Eb - E )/h that transfers one spin state of the initial
bound pair with binding energy Eb into a bound state of
12) with |1) or 13), of binding energy Eb. For a |1) - 13)
mixture near the Feshbach resonance, Eb << Eb [24], so
the bound-to-bound peak is well-separated from the
bound-to-free and free-to-free peaks. As very recently
calculated [28], final-state interactions and the anomalous
nature of scattering in 2D introduce an additional factor of
1n(Eb/E')
into Eq. (2), causing a rounding off of the
sharp peak expected from the step function.
In a 1D lattice, the binding energy for two-body pairs is
determined by the lattice spacing d, the depth VO, and the
3D scattering length a. In the 2D limit VO >> ER, with
recoil energy
ER =
h
, the scattering properties of the
gas are completely determined by Eb [22,23]. In that limit,
the lattice wells can be approximated as harmonic traps
with level spacing ho; = 2jV-OER and harmonic oscillator
length l, =
Jw7.
In a many-particle system in 2D, the
ratio of the binding energy to the Fermi energy determines
the strength of interactions. The 2D scattering amplitude
-nk1
- for collisions with energy EF is
f(EF)
where kF = %/22mEF/h and
ln(kFa2D),
by
parametrized
-h.It is large when Iln(kFa 2D)I !s 1
a2D
[22,23], corresponding to the strong-coupling regime
[28,29]. The BEC side of the BEC-BCS crossover corresponds to negative values of ln(kFa2D), while the BCS side
corresponds to positive values [20].
The experimental sequence proceeds as follows. An
ultracold gas of 6 Li is produced by sympathetic cooling
with 23 Na as described previously [21]. The 6 Li atoms are
transferred from a magnetic trap to an optical dipole trap
(wavelength 1064 nm, waist 120 gm), with axial harmonic
LETTERS
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27 JANUARY 2012
confinement (frequency 22.8 Hz) provided by magnetic
field curvature. With 6Li polarized in state 1l), the magnetic bias field is raised to 568 G, and an equal mixture of
hyperfine states 1l) and 13) is created using a 50% rf
transfer from 11) to 12) followed by a full transfer from
12) to 13). The field is then raised to the final value, and
evaporative cooling is applied by lowering the depth of the
optical dipole trap, resulting in a fermion pair condensate
with typically 5 X 105 atoms per spin state. The lattice is
then ramped up over 100 ms. The retro-reflected lattice
beam (wavelength 1064 nm) is at an angle of 0.5 degrees
from the optical dipole trap beam, enough to selectively
reflect only the lattice beam. The depth of the lattice is
calibrated using Kapitza-Dirac diffraction of a 2 3Na BEC
and a 6 Li2 molecular BEC and by lattice modulation
spectroscopy on the 6 Li cloud. The magnetic field and
hyperfine splitting are calibrated using rf spectroscopy on
spin-polarized clouds. After loading the lattice, the rf pulse
is applied for a duration of typically I ms. Images of state
12) and either Il) or 13) are recorded in each run of the
experiment.
To ensure loading into the first Bloch band, the Fermi
energy and temperature of the cloud are kept below the
second band. The 2D Fermi energy E2D = lh , with n the
2D density per spin state, is typically h X 10 kHz. The
bottom of the second band is at least one recoil energy
ER = h X 29.3 kHz above the bottom of the first band in
shallow lattices and up to about h X 300 kHz for the deepest lattices. The temperature is estimated to be on the order
of the Fermi energy.
rf spectra are recorded for various lattice depths and
interaction strengths. Figure 1 shows examples of spectra
over a range of lattice depths at the 3D Feshbach resonance
and on the BCS side of the resonance at 721 G, where
fermion pairing in 3D is a purely many-body effect. At the
lowest lattice depths, the spectra show only a single peak,
shifted to positive offset frequencies due to many-body
interactions. This is similar to the case without a lattice
[24,30]; to discern a peak due to fermion pairs from a peak
due to unbound atoms would require locally resolved rf
spectroscopy of imbalanced Fermi gases [30]. However, as
the lattice depth is raised, the single peak splits into two
and a clear pairing gap emerges. The narrow peak at zero
offset is the free-to-free transition, and the asymmetric
peak at positive offset is the pair dissociation spectrum.
The pair spectrum, especially on resonance, shows a sharp
threshold and a long tail corresponding to dissociation of
fermion pairs into free atoms with nonzero kinetic energy.
Binding energies are determined from the offset frequency of the pairing threshold. Although the line shape
in Eq. (2) jumps discontinuously from zero to its maximum
value, the spectra are observed to be broadened. This is to a
large part due to the logarithmic corrections [28] noted
above, which predict a gradual rise at the threshold
ht, = Eb, and a spectral peak that is slightly shifted from
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0.25
0.20
w9
ca
0.15
-
0.10
-
V
0.05
0.00
E
I,
*1
0
02c
.
.....
..r
5
10
15
20
25
30
VO/ER
0-
-
100- 150- 2
02
....
FIG. 2 (color online). Binding energy Eb versus lattice depth
Vo at several values of the 3D scattering length a. Eb is
normalized via the lattice frequency w, Red circles: results
from spectra at 690.7(1) G and d/a = -0.01(4). Green
Blue squares:
triangles: 720.7(1) G, d/a = -1.15(2).
4
..
..
800.1(1) G, d/a = -2.69(1).
0
50
100 150 200 o 20 40 60
RF offset (kHz)
FIG. 1 (color online).
Evolution of fermion pairing in the
3D-to-2D crossover in a one-dimensional optical lattice, observed via rf spectroscopy. Shown is the transferred atom number versus rf offset frequency relative to the atomic hyperfine
splitting. (a) Spectra at the Feshbach resonance at 690.7(1) G
with d/a = -0.01(4). Lattice depths from top to bottom in units
of ER: 1.84(3), 4.8(2), 6.1(2), 9.9(4), 12.2(4), 18.6(7), and 19.5
(7). (b) Spectra on the BCS side at 720.7(1) G, d/a = -1.15(2).
Lattice depths in units of ER: 2.75(5), 4.13(7), 4.8(1), 6.0(2), 10.3
(2), and 18.1(4).
Eb- We include possible additional broadening by convolv-
ing the theoretical line shape, including the logarithmic
correction, with a Gaussian function of width win. The
parameters Eb and wm are determined by a least-squares
fit to the measured spectrum. Typical spectra have w. of
5 kHz, consistent with our estimates of broadening based
on collisions and three-body losses. The Fourier broadening is 1 kHz. Power broadening is about 5 kHz on the
free-to-free transition and less than 1 kHz on the bound-tofree transition due to the reduced wave function overlap.
Inclusion of the logarithmic correction is found to be
necessary in order for the fit function to reproduce the
observed behavior of the high-frequency tail. The finalstate binding energy used in the logarithmic correction for
fitting is obtained from spectra where both a bound-tobound and a bound-to-free peak were measured. At low
lattice depths, the 2D form for the paired spectrum should
differ from the exact shape that interpolates between the
3D and 2D limits. In the case where the shape of the
spectrum is given by the 3D limit, fitting to the 2D form
overestimates the binding energy by 8%.
Curves show predictions from
Orso et aL [11]. Horizontal black dashed line: harmonic approximation result for 1/a = 0.
80 100
Figure 2 shows the measured binding energies as function of Vo/ER for several interaction strengths. The binding
energies are normalized by hwz = 2jVOER, which equals
the level spacing in the harmonic approximation to the
lattice potential. The measured binding energies grow
with increasing lattice depth and agree reasonably well
with theoretical predictions for two-body bound pairs in
a ID lattice [11]. The binding energy at the 3D resonance
approaches a constant multiple of hwz as the lattice
depth increases, as expected from the 2D limit [22,23].
Figure 3(a) compares the binding energies measured in
lattices deeper than 17ER to predictions in the harmonic
quasi-2D limit [22,23]. At the 3D Feshbach resonance, we
find Eb = 0.232(16)hwz for deep lattices. The error bar
refers to the standard error on the mean. This value is close
to the harmonic confinement result of 0.244hwz [23]. The
exact calculation [11] predicts a constant downward shift
2
of the binding energy by 0. ER for deep lattices due to the
anharmonicity of the sinusoidal potential. For Vo of about
20ER, this gives a prediction of 0.22hwz, also close to the
measured value.
Figure 3(b) shows the binding energy measured in
deep lattices normalized by the exact two-body result
[11] versus the many-body interaction parameter
ln(kFa2D). Overall, the binding energies are close to the
two-body value, even in the strong-coupling regime for
Iln(kFa2D)I < 1, as predicted by zero-temperature meanfield theory [20]. The data show a slight downward
deviation for the strongest coupling. At fixed reduced
temperature T/TF, the relationship should be universal. It
will thus be interesting to see in future work whether the
binding energy depends significantly on temperature.
The bound-to-bound transition is seen in Fig. 4 as a
narrow peak at negative offset frequencies. In the regime
where Eb can be found from the pair dissociation spectrum,
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a)
-
0.40.30.20.1
-
-500
0.0
-0.4
0.0
-0.2
0.2
-400
0
-50
0
50
0
20
200
100
b)
0.4
L/a
b)
1 1.0-
---
WN
C
(I,
E
0
-150
0.5-
-100
100
c)
0.0-1.0
-0.5
0.0
0.5
1.0
In(kFaD)
FIG. 3 (color online). (a) Binding energy of fermion pairs
versus interaction strength l/a for deep lattices (Vo > 1 7 ER).
Solid curve: theoretical prediction in the 2D harmonic limit
[22,23]. (b) Ratio of the measured binding energy to the twobody result [11] versus ln(kFa2D) for Vo > 17 ER. Black diamonds: binding energy determined from the bound-to-bound
transition with resonant final-state interactions. Other data symbols: see Fig. 2. Horizontal line: zero-temperature mean-field
theory [20].
the bound-to-bound peak position directly yields the binding energy in the final state E',. For example, the spectrum
in Fig. 4(a), taken at the 3D |1) - 13) resonance at
690.7(1) G and VO/ER = 9.59(7), gives E',/ER = 18.0(1)
at a final-state interaction of d/a' = 8.41(2). Likewise, the
spectrum in Fig. 4(b) at Vo/ER= 26.1(4) and a magnetic
field of 751.1(1) G, where d/a' = 2.55(1), gives E'/ER =
5.3(l). An independent measurement for d/a = 2.55(2)
using the bound-to-free spectrum at 653.55 G yields
Eb/ER = 5.25(2), showing that bound-to-bound transitions correctly indicate binding energies.
The BCS side of the 2D BEC-BCS crossover is reached
in Fig. 4(c) by increasing the number of atoms to increase
EF and increasing the magnetic field to reach a lower
binding energy. In Fig. 4(c), the central Fermi energy is
h X 43(6) kHz and T/TF= 0.5(2). The magnetic field is
set to 834.4(1) G, where d/a = -3.06(1), and the finalstate interactions between |1) and 12) are resonant, with
d/a' = -0.01(3). The lattice depth is Vo/ER = 26.4(3).
Thus, we know that E' = 0.232(16)hwz = 2 .4 (2 )ER at
this lattice depth. From the bound-to-bound transition in
Fig. 4(c), we can then directly determine the binding
energy of |1) - 13) fermion pairs to be Eb/ER = 0.9(2).
The theoretical prediction [11] for two-body binding gives
Eb/ER = 0.82(1). The measured binding energy gives a
many-body interaction parameter of ln(kFa2D) = 0.6(1),
on the BCS side but within the strongly interacting regime,
where one expects many-body effects beyond mean-field
-60
-40
-20
40
60
RE offset (kHz)
FIG. 4 (color online). Spectra including the bound-to-bound
transition, a narrow peak at negative rf offset. Shown are spectra
at magnetic fields of (a) 690.7(1) G, (b) 751.1(1) G, and
(c) 834.4(1). The interaction parameters d/a are (a) -0.01(4),
(b) -1.91(1), and (c) -3.06(1). Lattice depths in units of ER are
(a) 9.59(7), (b) 26.1(4), and (c) 26.4(3). The bound-to-free
transition is not visible in (c). The transfer is from 1l) to 12)
in (a) and (b) and from 13) to 12) in (c).
BEC-BCS theory [26,29]. It is therefore interesting that the
measured binding energy is close to the expected two-body
binding energy to much better than the Fermi energy, as
predicted by mean-field theory [20].
In conclusion, we have measured the binding energy of
fermion pairs along the crossover from 3D to 2D in a onedimensional optical lattice. Measurements were performed
at several lattice depths and scattering lengths, allowing
quantitative comparison with theoretical predictions.
Considering the fact that the gas is a strongly interacting
many-body system, the close agreement with two-body
theory is surprising, especially in the strong-coupling re-
gime. While mean-field BEC-BCS theory in 2D predicts
this behavior [20], it misses other important features of the
many-body system, most strikingly the interaction between
fermion pairs [13]. Superfluidity in a one-dimensional
lattice will be an exciting topic for future studies. Stacks
of weakly coupled, superfluid 2D layers would constitute a
basic model of the geometry found in high-temperature
superconductors.
The authors would like to thank G. Orso for providing
his code to calculate binding energies and M. K6hl and W.
Zwerger for stimulating discussions. This work was sup-
ported by the NSF, AFOSR-MURI, ARO-MURI, ONR,
DARPA YFA, a grant from the Army Research Office with
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funding from the DARPA OLE program, the David and
Lucile Packard Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan
Foundation.
week ending
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LETTERS
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Appendix E
Spin-Injection Spectroscopy of a
Spin-Orbit Coupled Fermi Gas
This appendix contains a reprint of Ref. [25]: Lawrence W. Cheuk, Ariel T. Sommer,
Zoran Hadzibabic, Tarik Yefsah, Waseem S. Bakr, and Martin W. Zwierlein, SpinInjection Spectroscopy of a Spin-Orbit Coupled Fermi Gas, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109,
095302 (2012).
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PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS
PRL 109, 095302 (2012)
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Spin-Injection Spectroscopy of a Spin-Orbit Coupled Fermi Gas
Lawrence W. Cheuk,' Ariel T. Sommer,' Zoran Hadzibabic,1, 2 Tarik Yefsah,' Waseem S. Bakr,' and Martin W. Zwierlein'
'Department of Physics, MIT-Harvard Center for UltracoldAtoms, and Research Laboratoryof Electronics,
MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
2
Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, J.J. Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 OHE, United Kingdom
(Received 25 June 2012; published 27 August 2012)
The coupling of the spin of electrons to their motional state lies at the heart of recently discovered
topological phases of matter. Here we create and detect spin-orbit coupling in an atomic Fermi gas, a
highly controllable form of quantum degenerate matter. We directly reveal the spin-orbit gap via
spin-injection spectroscopy, which characterizes the energy-momentum dispersion and spin composition
of the quantum states. For energies within the spin-orbit gap, the system acts as a spin diode. We also
create a spin-orbit coupled lattice and probe its spinful band structure, which features additional spin gaps
and a fully gapped spectrum. In the presence of s-wave interactions, such systems should display induced
p-wave pairing, topological superfluidity, and Majorana edge states.
PACS numbers: 67.85.Lm, 03.65.Vf, 03.65.Wj, 03.75.Ss
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.095302
Spin-orbit coupling is responsible for a variety of phenomena, from the fine structure of atomic spectra to the
spin Hall effect, topological edge states, and, in the
presence of interactions, the predicted phenomenon of
topological superconductivity [1,2]. In electronic systems,
spin-orbit coupling arises from the relativistic transformation of electric fields into magnetic fields in a moving
reference frame. In the reference frame of an electron
moving with wave vector k in an electric field, the motional
magnetic field couples to the electron spin through the
magnetic dipole interaction. In a two-dimensional semiconductor heterostructure, the electric field can arise from
structure or bulk inversion asymmetry [3], leading to
magnetic fields of the form B(R) = a(-ky, kx, 0) or B(D) =
#3(ky, kx, 0), respectively known as the Rashba [4] and
Dresselhaus [5] contributions. Including a possible
momentum-independent Zeeman field B(z) = (0, B(Z),
Bzz)), the Hamiltonian of the electron takes the form
H
=
h2 k2
2m
h
B S - (B()
+ B(R) + B(z))
(1)
where g is the electron g factor, p11 is the Bohr magneton,
and S is the electron spin.
The energy-momentum dispersion and the associated
spin texture of the Hamiltonian in Eq. (1) are shown in
Fig. 1(a) for B(Z) = 0 and a = f. In the absence of a
perpendicular Zeeman field B~z, the spectrum consists of
the parabolic free particle dispersions for the two spin
states that are shifted relative to each other in k space
owing to the spin-orbit interaction. For a nonzero field
B(Z), a gap opens in the spectrum. This gap, known as
the spin-orbit gap, has been recently observed in onedimensional quantum wires [6,7]. The two energy bands
are spinful in the sense that the spin of an atom is locked to
its momentum.
0031-9007/12/109(9)/095302(5)
In this work, we engineer the Hamiltonian in Eq. (1)
with equal Rashba and Dresselhaus strengths in an optically trapped, degenerate gas of fermionic lithium atoms
via Raman dressing of atomic hyperfine states [8,9].
Raman fields have previously been used to generate spinorbit coupling and gauge fields in pioneering work on
Bose-Einstein condensates [10-12] and, recently, spinorbit coupling in Fermi gases [13]. Here, we directly
measure the spinful band structure of Eq. (1), as well as
the rich band structure of a spin-orbit coupled lattice. For
this, we introduce spin-injection spectroscopy, which is
capable of completely characterizing the quantum states
of spin-orbit coupled fermions, including the energymomentum dispersion and the associated spin texture. By
tracing the evolution of quantum states in the Brillouin
zone, this method can be extended to directly measure
topological invariants, such as the Chem number in a
two-dimensional system [1,2,14].
Spin-orbit coupling is generated by using a pair of laser
beams that connects the second and third lowest hyperfine
levels in 6 Li, labeled | 1) and 11), via a two-photon Raman
transition, as shown in Figs. 1(b) and 1(c). The Raman
process imparts momentum hQx to an atom while changing its spin from I1) to IT) and momentum -hQx while
changing the spin from T to 1). Defining a quasimomentum q = k. + for spin |1) and q = k, for spin )
one obtains the Hamiltonian of the form given in Eq. (1)
[10]. In this mapping, Bz) =
IR9/gA, where fiR is the
two-photon Rabi frequency, B(z) = h8/gpA, where 8 is
the two-photon detuning, and a = 8 =
Q .2 In addition
to providing spin-orbit coupling, the Raman beams lead to
spontaneous photon scattering. For our experimental setup,
the spontaneous scattering rate is -240 times smaller than
fR, slow enough to permit accurate spin-injection spectroscopy (see Supplemental Material [15]).
095302-1
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PRL 109, 095302 (2012)
* i) 3
.
S0.2
0.
i=0.4
0.2501
.1
(b)
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B
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0
0.S
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1
0
1
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-1
2
0 1
-
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A
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0.2
(\ ) 0 0
I04
1E 0.4
l
i061U
\V
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-1
0 1
2
-1
0
1
2
FIG. 1 (color online). Realization of spin-orbit coupling in an
atomic Fermi gas. (a) Energy bands as a function of quasimo2
mentum q for Raman coupling strength of hflR = 0. 5ER and
h8 = OER. Energy bands for hQR = h3 = OER are shown with
dashed lines. Color indicates spin composition of the states.
(b) A pair of Raman beams at ± 19* relative to the j axis couples
states I , k. = q) and I 1,k, = q + Q). A bias magnetic field B
in the 2 direction provides the quantization axis. (c) Energy level
diagram of states coupled by the Raman fields: h6 is the twophoton detuning. The hyperfine interaction splits I T) and 11) by
hwo, and the relevant polarization components are 7r and or+.
(d) Momentum-dependent Rabi oscillations for h1iR =
0.71( 2 )ER and h8 = -0. 25 (1)ER. Atoms are prepared in I 4)
(red) and are subsequently projected into a superposition of
eigenstates as the Raman field is pulsed on. (e) A ir pulse for
the resonant momentum class is applied at different h7 for
of
hfR = 0.035(5)ER. (f),(g) Adiabatic loading and 5unloading
atoms into the upper (lower) band with hfIR = 0. 3 (5)ER. The
Raman beams are turned on with 8 = -;8.5fIR, which is then
swept linearly to 8 = 0 and back at a rate of 161 = 0.27(5)'1.
We sympathetically cool 6Li atoms with 2Na in a
magnetic trap down to a temperature of T < 0.1 TF, where
TF is the Fermi temperature [16]. After removal of Na
atoms, the Li atoms are transferred into an optical dipole
trap formed by two orthogonal 1064 nm beams. To separate the atomic hyperfine levels, we apply a magnetic field
of 11.6 G. At this field, the interactions between states | t)
and I ) (scattering length 20ao) are negligible in the
experiment.
When the spin-orbit gap is opened suddenly, an atom
prepared in the state I L k, = q - Q/2) oscillates between
I, kx=q- Q/2)
and
|,kx =q+Q/2)
with
a
momentum-dependent frequency A(q)/h, where A(q) is
the energy difference between the bands at quasimomentum q. Such Rabi oscillations correspond to Larmor precession of the pseudospin in the effective magnetic field
B(so) = B(D) + B(R) + B(z). We have observed these oscillations by starting with atoms in I1), pulsing on the
Raman field for a variable duration T, and imaging the
atoms spin-selectively after time-of-flight expansion
from the trap. Time-of-flight maps momentum to real
space, allowing direct momentum resolution of the spin
LETTERS
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31 AUGUST 2012
populations. As a function of pulse duration, we observe
oscillations of the spin polarization with momentumdependent frequencies, as shown in Fig. 1(d). Since our
Fermi gas occupies a large range of momentum states with
near-unity occupation, each image at a given pulse duration r contains information for a large range of momenta q.
The observation of momentum-dependent oscillations
demonstrates the presence of a spin-orbit gap and shows
that the atomic system is coherent over many cycles. To
highlight the momentum selectivity of this process, we
prepare an equal mixture of atoms in states |1) and 11
and pulse on the Raman fields for a time t = 7r/flR for
different two-photon detunings 8. This inverts the spin for
atoms with momentum q where A(q) is minimal and equals
MIR. The resonant momentum class depends linearly on 8
due to the Doppler shift oc kQ, as shown in Fig. 1(e).
Instead of pulsing on the Raman field and projecting the
initial state into a superposition of states in the two bands,
one can introduce the spin-orbit gap adiabatically with
respect to band populations. This is achieved by starting
with a spin-polarized Fermi gas and sweeping the twophoton detuning 8 from an initial value 8 to a final
detuning 8. The magnitude of the initial detuning 18;1 is
much larger than the two-photon recoil energy ER =
h2Q 2 /2m, so that the effective Zeeman field is almost
entirely parallel with the spins. Depending on the direction
of the sweep, this loads atoms into either the upper or the
lower dressed band. We interrupt the sweep at various
times and image the spin-momentum distribution. This
reveals that the spin texture follows the effective Zeeman
field. We verify that the process is reversible by sweeping
the detuning back to tS and observing that full spin polarization is restored, as shown in Figs. 1(f) and 1(g).
Having demonstrated the ability to engineer spin-orbit
coupling in a Fermi gas, we introduce a general approach
to measure the eigenstates and energies of fermions at each
quasimomentum q and thus resolve the band structure and
the spin texture of spin-orbit coupled atomic systems. Our
approach yields similar information to spin and angleresolved photoemission spectroscopy (spin-ARPES), a
powerful technique recently developed in condensed matter physics [17]. Spin-ARPES is particularly useful for
studying magnetic and quantum spin Hall materials; it
has been used, for example, to directly measure topological
quantum numbers in the Bit _,Sb, series, revealing the
presence of topological order and chiral properties [18].
Our spectroscopic technique uses radio frequency (rf)
spin injection of atoms from a free Fermi gas into an empty
spin-orbit coupled system using photons of a known energy, as shown in Fig. 2(a). After injection, the momentum
and spin of the injected atoms are analyzed by using time
of ffight [19] combined with spin-resolved detection.
Atoms are initially loaded into one of two free "reservoir"
atomic states I )R and I T)R, for which we use the first and
fourth lowest hyperfine states of 6Li. State I I)R can be
095302-2
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(a)
o
\R)
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s -02s
0.
1vsto
/l
W.ooNo'N
01
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.D~
os
1 s Is-a
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-0.5j
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0.
0.J
0.0
( )l
0
\
'
2-2-1 0
1
2-2-1
1
2
FIG. 2 (color online). Spin-injection spectroscopy. (a) An rf
pulse injects atoms from the reservoir states (shown in black)
|IIR and I 1 R into the spin-orbit coupled system (shown in red
and blue). Injection occurs when the rf photon energy equals the
energy difference between the reservoir state and the spin-orbit
coupled state at quasimomentum q. (b),(c) Spin-resolved|I ) and
respectively, when transferring out of I t)R. Here,
I 1) spectra,
4
Mlc = 0. 3(5)E0 and 78 = 0.00(3)ER. (d),(e) Spin-resolved I
) and I I) spectra, respectively, when transferring out of I E)R for
the same Raman strength hfIR. (f), (g), and (h) The reconstructed spinful dispersions for h8 = O.00(3)ER and hflR =
OER, hDR
=
O.4 3(5)ER, and ldR
=
.9(l)E,
respectively.1
coupled via rf to the state | 4), as this connects the first and
second lowest hyperfine states. Similarly, an atom in state
I t)', can be transferred to I 1). rf spin injection does not
impart momentum to the atom and occurs when the frequency of the rf pulse matches the energy difference
between the spin-orbit coupled bands and the initial reservoir state, as shown in Fig. 2(a). Spin injection from I )X
(I l)R) populates mostly the region of the spin-orbit coupled
bands with a strong admixture of II) (I1)) states. Thus, the
use of two reservoir states allows us to measure both the
I 4)-rich and the I 1)-rich parts of the spin-orbit coupled
bands. Following the injection process, the Raman beams
are switched off, and the atoms are simultaneously released
from the trap. By counting the number of atoms of a given
spin and momentum as a function of injection energy after
time of ffight, we determine the dispersion of the spin-orbit
coupled bands along with their spin texture. Note that,
while spin-ARPES and previous momentum-resolved
spectroscopic techniques in ultracold atoms probe the occupied states of a given system, our spin-injection method
probes the unoccupied states. In the case of fermionic
superfluids, this would reveal the excited branch of the
quasiparticle dispersion.
The topological characteristics of the bands, which are
encoded in the eigenstates, can be extracted from the spin
and momentum composition. For our spin-orbit system
with 8 = 0, the spin of the eigenstates is confined to the
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week ending
31 AUGUST 2012
y-z plane on the Bloch sphere, because the effective magnetic field has no . component. More general couplings
may not restrict the spin to a great circle on the Bloch
sphere, in which case at least two spin components must be
measured for a complete characterization of the bands.
This can be achieved by rotating the different spin components onto the measurement basis with an rf pulse.
Applying spin-injection spectroscopy, we have measured the band structure of the equal-part RashbaDresselhaus Hamiltonian at 8 = 0 for several IkR.
Figures 2(b)-2(e) show spin- and momentum-resolved
spin-injection spectra obtained with atoms starting in the
the I DR reservoir
I D)R reservoir (top row) and starting in
43
(bottom row), for the case hIR = 0. (5)ER and 8 = 0.
The (q, 1) +-+ (-q, 1) symmetry of the system can be seen in
the spectra in Fig. 2. The energy at each quasimomentum is
found by adding the energy injected into the system by the
rf pulse to the initial kinetic energy of the free particle in
the reservoir. Figures 2(f)-2(h) show the dispersion and
spin texture of the bands obtained from the data. As fR is
increased, we observe the opening of a spin-orbit gap at
q = 0. The spin composition of the bands evolves from
purely I1) or 14) away from the spin-orbit gap to a mixture
of the two spin states in the vicinity of the spin-orbit gap,
where the spin states are resonantly coupled.
A Fermi gas with the above dispersion has a spinful
semimetallic behavior when the Fermi energy lies within
the spin-orbit gap. When the Fermi energy is outside the
spin-orbit gap, there is a fourfold degeneracy of states at
the Fermi surface. Inside the gap, however, the degeneracy
is halved. Furthermore, propagation of spin up particles at
the Fermi energy can occur only in the positive q direction,
while spin down fermions can propagate only in the opposite direction. For energies within the gap, the system thus
acts as a spin-current diode.
An even richer band structure involving multiple spinful
bands separated by fully insulating gaps can arise in the
presence of a periodic lattice potential. This has been
realized for Bose-Einstein condensates by adding rf coupling between the Raman-coupled states I 1) and 14) [20].
Using a similar method, we create a spinful lattice for
ultracold fermions and use spin-injection spectroscopy to
probe the resulting spinful band structure. The combined
Raman-rf coupling scheme is shown in Fig. 3(a). The
Raman field couples the states I k, = q) and I T, k, =
q + Q) with strength fIR, whereas the rf field couples the
states I , k, = q) and 11, k, = q) with strength fIR1 . As a
result, the set of coupled states for a given quasimomentum
q, shown in the repeated Brillouin scheme in Fig. 3(b), is
|o-, k, = q + nQ) for integer n and o- =T, I . The lowest
four bands are degenerate at the band center q = 0 when
= fR = 0. The Raman field splits the degeneracy
between the first and fourth bands, leaving the other two
degenerate. The remaining degeneracy, which is a Dirac
point, is removed with the addition of the rf field. Thus,
fl
095302-3
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It, k+Q)
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(d) 0A
(c)
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LETTERS
(b)
hRIER
hAVIER 0-00
a4
8160.4
(b
14, k)
1, k+Q)
I
0A
a
4M
0.0
WO.0
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00
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L&0.5
0.0
0
Wf
1
-0.5
0
W/
0.
0.4-
OJA
-IS as
-1.
1.5
when the system is filled up to the top of the second band, it
is an insulator. Furthermore, when fR is large enough, a
band gap also opens between the first and second bands.
Figure 3(d) shows the |1) channel of the spin-injection
spectra, measured with fermions initially in reservoir
state I DR- Spectra with injection from I )R is sufficient
to reconstruct the full band structure given the (q, 1) -+
(-q, 1) symmetry of the Hamiltonian. The transitions
between the reservoir and the spin-orbit coupled bands
for h1fR = 0.40(5)ER and hMIR = 0.2 8 (2 )ER are shown
in Fig. 3(c). The experimental spectrum in Fig. 3(d) is
compared to the theoretically calculated spectrum, shown
in Fig. 3(e). The spectrum exhibits four prominent features separated by three energy gaps, labeled A1 , A2 , and
A 3 in Fig. 3(e). The gaps giving rise to these features are
shown on the band structure in Fig. 3(c). The gap A I is
opened by the spin-orbit coupling, while A 2 is opened
by a direct rf coupling, and A3 is opened by a secondorder process that involves both the rf and Raman fields,
explaining its smallness. We have explored the Raman-rf
system for a range of coupling strengths as shown in the
spectra in Figs. 4(a) and 4(b). With a careful choice of
the Raman-rf coupling strengths, spinful flat bands can
be realized (see Supplemental Material, Fig. S3 [15]),
where interactions should play a dominant role [21].
To illustrate how the energy bands along with the corresponding eigenstates can be extracted, we reconstruct the
.5 nG
1.511.5
GD
15
-.
D
.-.
.
kx /
O3
0.45,
FIG. 3 (color online). Creating and probing a spin-orbit
coupled lattice. (a) The addition of a radio frequency field allows
momentum transfer of any multiple of Q, producing a spinful
lattice band structure. (b) The band structure of the Raman-rf
system in the repeated zone scheme. Band structures from top to
bottom correspond to hMIR = 0 and MIR = 0.25ER, hflR =
0.5ER and hflF = 0, and ha1 R = 0.5ER and hOF = 0. 2 5ER.
In the bottommost band, all degeneracies are lifted. (c) Spin
injection from free particle bands to spinful lattice bands, starting from D)R. Transitions near zero rf detuning (hAvy- 0) that
give rise to dominant spectral features are identified.
(d) Experimental spectrum of the Raman-rf system with hfIR =
0. 4 0(5)ER and hMlR = 0.2 8 (2 )ER in the spin |1) channel after
injection from reservoir I E',. (e) The theoretical spectra corresponding to (d). Features corresponding to the gaps and transitions identified in (c) are labeled.
I&I
1515
G
.
kx/
1d) IS21
(C)EIER
1.2
k./Q
0.
COL4
0*0
" .
-1
MO
.04
C&L4
0.5
/RIER
0.4
011
(t)
A
0.2-
s2#
00.
2
S
.
O.C
L
_W
0.0
q1Q
0- 5 -2 -1 0
1
2
-2 -1
k 0kx/0
0
1
2
0.0
0-2 0.4
1S.1
FIG. 4 (color online). Evolution of spin-textured energy bands
of a spin-orbit coupled lattice. (a),(b) Experimental Raman-rf
spin-injection spectra for injection from I 1 for channels 11)
and I T), respectively. The color map used is the same as Figs. 2(b)
and 2(e) after rescaling to the maximum intensity. Interaction
effects between I t) with I )R (see Fig. S4) makes only the
dominant features resolvable in I T), while finer features are visible
in 11). (c) Reconstructed band structure for hdIR = 0.93(7)E
and hUR = 0. 2 8 ( 2 )ER. Color indicates the spin texture.
(d)-(f) Experimentally measured spin components S., and ISzI
as a function of momentum k, for the lattice wave functions
corresponding to the bottommost band in (c).
energy bands along with the spin texture for hfR =
0. 9 3 (7)ER and KIRp = 0.2 8 (2 )ER, as shown in Fig. 4(c).
The energies of the bands are obtained from the resonant
frequencies in the spin-injection spectra, while the spin
composition Syz is extracted from the relative weights of
the signal in the two spin channels (see Supplemental
Material [15]). In Figs. 4(d)-4(f), we show the extracted
value of S,(k,) and ISz(k)| for the bottommost band when
93
MIR = 0.
(7)ER and hl
= 0. 2 8 (2 )ER. For more general spin-orbit Hamiltonians involving o-,, one can extract
the phase between all three components of $(k,) with
additional rf pulses and fully characterize the eigenstate
for the corresponding quasimomentum q. The topology of
the band, encoded in the evolution of its eigenstates across
the Brillouin zone, can thus be measured.
In summary, we have created and directly probed a spinorbit gap in a Fermi gas of ultracold atoms and realized a
fully gapped band structure allowing for spinful flat bands.
We introduced spin-injection spectroscopy to characterize
the spin-textured energy-momentum dispersion. We
further show that spin-injection spectroscopy allows reconstruction of eigenstates in a spinful lattice system.
Extensions of this method can reveal the nontrivial topology of bands in more general spin-orbit coupled systems
[22], opening a path to probing topological insulators with
ultracold atoms. Similar spectroscopic techniques should
095302-4
PRL 109, 095302 (2012)
PHYSICAL
REVIEW
allow the demonstration of effective p-wave interactions in
a single component spin-orbit coupled Fermi gas, either
near an s-wave Feshbach resonance or for flat bands as
realized here. In these systems, interactions may lead to
BCS pairing in a p-wave channel and, in a twodimensional Fermi gas with pure Rashba coupling, to
Px + ipy pairing and chiral superfluidity [23,24].
week ending
31 AUGUST 2012
LETTERS
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(London) 471, 83 (2011).
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This work was supported by the NSF, a grant from the
Zhai, and J. Zhang, preceding Letter, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109,
Army Research Office with funding from the DARPA OLE
program, ARO-MURI on Atomtronics, AFOSR-MURI,
ONR YIP, DARPA YFA, an AFOSR PECASE, and the
095301 (2012).
[141 E. Zhao, N. Bray-Ali, C. J. Williams, I. B. Spielman, and
I.I. Satija, Phys. Rev. A 84, 063629 (2011).
David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Z. H. acknowledges
funding from EPSRC under Grant No. EP/I010580/1.
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See
Supplemental
Material
at
http://link.aps.org/
supplemental/10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.095302
for de-
tails of the experimental setup and data analysis.
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